A Winter's Rose Meets a RWBY
by Happy1K1nob1
Summary: What happens when a Monster, a Saint, a Rogue, and a Blacksmith meet a naive Huntress-in-Training, an Heiress, a Cat, and a Berserker? Why, monsters, of course!
1. After Work Relaxation?

Okay, so here's a little note for those of you unfamiliar with the universe of RWBY: most of the confusing stuff that is particular to the place (such as Grimm, Aura, Dust, Semblance, Hunters, etc.) will be explained in-story. That way the new guys aren't left behind right at the start. Though, in my opinion, if you haven't seen RWBY yet, then you absolutely must do so. Not for the story, but because the plot and comedy of the show is just absolutely awesome! You can find it on the Roosterteeth website, roosterteeth.c om , and it's highly recommended. (there's a space in the URL because doesn't actually allow URL's in stories for the most part. The program they use just doesn't notice when there's a space)

Also, for everybody who reads my stories, this story is actually already complete, fully written, I just need to type it up and post it, so you don't need to worry about not getting more. Sort of. I'll explain that later.

Now, this story is absolutely amazing in that it actually took me 2 months of solid work to get it done, and it just went out of control, from a simple one-shot idea to a huge, multi-thousand word full-on story! In fact, I had to cut it into chapters and arcs even! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it! :)

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><p>In Winter Rose's General Store, a young woman was stocking the shelves, rather precariously perched upon various furniture as she sang and did her job. Currently, she was finishing a pile of jars and singing about being held, safe and warm, in the middle of a winter's storm.<p>

Then she jumped off the chair and grabbed a large pile of boxes and began to sing a new song as she jumped onto a table and began to put away the boxes that go there.

She was a rather tall individual, wearing a looser black sleeved shirt that hugged while not being revealing with red on her shoulders down her sleeves in a pair of long stripes, a set of simple black cargo pants with red accents on the side pockets, and, currently, calloused bare feet that seemed surprisingly delicate, even when you consider the size and seeming power in those callouses and scars.

From the way she looked and moved about, it was fairly obvious she was at least decently fit, but when you were looking and she didn't know, that's when the most striking observations about her were there to see.

She acted happy and carefree, but her bearing, no matter how demure, was that of a powerful and weary warrior. Her steps were quiet and sure, ready for flight, stealth, or attack at any moment. Her innocent face had a certain hardness to it, and when her red-frosted shoulder length black hair wasn't covering her right side, you could see a black handkerchief with a red rose covering the right eye, but letting her sparkling silver eye on the left show.

Then she was getting to the end of her song, humming for a bit before she began to sing and began her last stack of boxes in their area. It was also the biggest pile.

"Oh, he will wait for - **One Day! While he was waiting for the trolley, he had a hat!**" She switched voices as she sang as well. "_My high silk hat!_ **He wore it high upon his head so proudly, a beautiful hat! A hat, like this which makes him feel so grandly, now fancy this, and fancy that! The splendor of his hat in all its majesty,** _Like a king! In a royal cap! I feel so swell and handsome in my hat! I bet that others wish they had, in fact, a hat as this, a hat as that, a hat so fine a high silk haaaat! Oh, Mr. Art Bigotti, now waddya think of that?!_"

"I think it sounds quite silly." A deep male voice said from behind her with some amusement.

Now, while she had been aware that someone had come in thanks to the bell on the door, she hadn't been expecting a response to the lyrics, and so overbalanced and nearly lost her stack as she fell. A box almost fell, but decided it was comfy on the top, and she smiled. "Nailed it."

The pale-skinned man raised his right eyebrow. "You're lying on the floor. Somehow, I don't think that qualifies." He stated.

"I didn't drop my boxes, did I?" She fired back with an exultant smile. She carefully moved the boxes off her belly and got up to talk to her friend and customer. "Besides which, the song was supposed to be silly. It was called a Silly Song, even. Anyway, what can I do for you, Mr. Arbigotti?"

"Well, I'd like my usual and, maybe, a bit of hairgel?" He asked with a smile of feigned self-conscious embarrassment as he stroked his rather large afro. It was a game they always played.

She smiled. "I still don't think you need it Mr. B." She hopped off to collect the man's items. Whenever she grabbed the dog bones for him, she was reminded of the fact that she is secretly convinced that he was secretly a dog Faunus, but always kept her mouth shut. It was better not knowing for sure, what with the prejudice against the half-human/half-animal people. Still bothered her that littlest bit that hatred could spring up over such a minute detail, but she'd had her ass kicked by the other half of what she called "People" before, and she knew that a wounded pride was an easy source of hate.

After putting his stuff into a box, like usual, she brought it up to the counter and rang up his pricing, along with the hair product her roommate liked, which she pretended to slip into the box as stealthily as possible. the truth was that he knew what she was actually doing, just as she did, so it was pointless to be tricky about it. Still a fun game though.

She sent him on his way and went back to restocking the shop. As she got to the last box, she was distracted by it, and instead of shelving it, she opened it. It was a weapons magazine, filled with interesting pictures of exciting weapons and add-ons, like that scythe with a variable chaingun attachment or that rapier that could turn into a dart or a ball and chain! Or even better, a recallable dart!

She had a lot of fun looking through it until it disappeared and a stern voice tried to chide her. "Rose! We're not supposed to open our own merchandise!"

Rose looked up at her magazine's thief with a sad expression. The woman in front of her was dressed all in white from her slightly padded rider's pants and sensible non-expensive (but not really all that cheap) shoes to her simple coat covering a white shirt which had always reminded Rose of a Civil War military jacket and even down to the very last hair on the woman's face, even those beautiful eyebrows giving shade to those breathtakingly sparkling ice blue orbs (which were trying to be as severe as the face they sat upon), were a pure white, whiter than most snows Rose had ever seen (and she'd seen a lot of snow). Rose could tell the other woman was really trying hard to keep the genuine displeasure on her face rather than the soft smile trying to burst its way out.

"Don't worry Snow." Rose said with a smile. "It's not yours anymore."

Snow-white brows furrowed in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rose pointed at the cash drawer. "I paid for it. My money's right under the drawer, just waiting to be put in the drawer, and the rest are on the shelves."

Snow looked and saw the small pile of Lien under the cash register and sighed, allowing her smile to come out, if colored with concern. She turned back to the red-frosted brunette and sat down next to her on the step. "I just worry about you Rose, that's all."

"Please, don't" Rose said with a soft smile. "I'm a big girl, I can take care of us."

Snow sighted again, The smile fading this time. "I know that. I know that you're a big girl, but we have to be really careful with you. If we aren't, we may not be able to deal with the fallout."

For a second, Rose wanted to say "Then don't.", but held her tongue. She knew better. Instead, she smiled softly and said, "Alright then." Then she drew the snow-haired angel into a soft and slightly awkward hug, staying ever attentive of her strength. Then they reluctantly drew apart and studied each other with a tad bit of worry, just like always, And just like always, they found nothing wrong. They hadn't for over a year, since a few days after their last Opening Anniversary, in fact.

That's when Snow noticed Rose's lack of shoes. "Rose, where're your shoes?" She asked a little dangerously.

Think of a lie, quick! "Uh, I just lost 'em somewhere is all." Nice save. They're actually right where Rose always "loses" them, shoe basket in the Bedroom above the store. She always forgets them or loses them wen they're there. Sad, but true.

Unless she just really wants to not wear shoes as much as possible. Always a possibility.

"Honestly, for someone who can remember every minute detail about completely random and unimportant things, you have such a hard time remembering to grab your shoes when you take them off."

'Actually, that's deliberate.' Rose thought as she fought to keep a downcast look on her face rather than her smirk.

A small pile of bills were pushed into Rose's hands, and she looked up at Snow's unusually soft expression with a confused and questioning look on her face.

"Here, go get a new pair. Something really nice this time." She said softly.

"Are you sure?" Rose asked with genuine concern. Neither one of them really did this sort of thing at all, being very strict protectors of their moneys.

"Yes, I'm sure. The store's doing well enough that we can easily afford a few nice things every now and then, between takeout nights."

Rose smiled gratefully and Snow smiled back. "Nice to have money again, isn't it? A lot better than when we struggled to pay the rent." And better than having to face the possibility of Bankruptcy, like last year.

"Yeah." Snow stood and pulled Rose up after. "Now go and get some shoes, you dunce." She said with a playful push and a wider smile.

"Alright, my Angel." And with that, the brunette dashed off at a sedate pace, unaware of the sad and concerned expression that stayed on Snow's face after Rose left. It was easy to smile with her in the room most times and days, but she and the other three were continually worried about their "Happy" member, knowing what she had done and what she could do from first-hand experience. Maybe one day she'd stop caring and start killing again.

But to be honest? The rest of the world could go straight to Hell for all they cared, but if any other member of the team, Rose especially, if they needed help, they were immediately top priority automatically. The others will always drop whatever they're doing, no matter how important, if any other of what little remains of their family is in trouble.

No matter what, they will survive, together.

As family.

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><p>"Oh, come on you piece of-" She muttered at the inanimate object in front of her. She groaned with the strain for a moment before a loud clang sounded throughout the room, followed by a string of profanity including something about a donkey mule and the object's mother. She finally got fed up and just punched it. that was followed by 3 clangs, moaning in pain, and the "Owie Dance" as performed by the young woman.<p>

When she was done "dancing", she glared at the offending vehicle, which now had a fist-shaped dent right above where the pathetic and broken bit lay next to her tools broken by trying to take out the rusted piece of junk: an extractor and a wrench. "All right, I'm done!" She shouted at it. "I'm done with you and I'm taking a shower." She declared, staring the vehicle down. Useless, she knew, as the vehicle had no intelligence and no ability to affect her at all, as far as she knew, but she'd found that saying it out loud helped to keep from useless toil whenever she warred with her need to fix things.

After a few more seconds staring the poor hunk-o'-junk down, she managed to leave it alone. This time, she won against her need to keep fixing it past her patience, but it was honestly a close thing.

When she got to the bathroom connected to her bedroom, she paused to examine herself in the full-length mirror.

She stood tall and, usually confident, though she was currently exhausted and defeated because of that one stupid BOLT! She resisted the urge to punch the mirror, knowing it'd cost to buy a new one, and instead punched the wall behind her, watching the concrete crumble around her fist and winced at the reminder of her still new strength.

She brought her mind back to the mirror to try and ignore that crummy piece of steel.

Right now, she was in her mechanicking clothes: A black tube top with red hems that her "sister" Rose had picked out for her last Christmas (since it was designed to cover her sides and back, but not her very well-defined six-pack abs while perfectly conforming to her body, and because she couldn't find the design anywhere, she was thoroughly convinced the brunette had made it herself just for her), a pair of black jogging shorts (which may have also been handsewn), a set of reinforced cut-finger gloves, and a pair of steel-toed boots. Every single well-defined muscle in her larger-than-normal arms and legs were plain to see, other than her left forearm, which was wrapped up in bandages after a particularly nasty burn a few days ago. Normally, she also wore a tan trenchcoat, but that was left in the room because today was an inside day. Her kind face framed rather unique purple eyes, just a few shades off high-quality Amethyst, while her face was framed by rather beautiful and bountiful butt-length blazing golden hair.

She stripped off her clothing. When she was younger, she would've paused to admire her body. If she'd had it then, that is.

Of course, that was 50 years and too many funerals ago. So instead she just stepped into the shower and cleaned.

Afterwards, she toweled off the worst of the water, put on the same underwear, shorts, and top that she'd been wearing before the shower and let them soak up the rest of the water while letting her hair air-dry. Since she just wanted to relax now without thinking about work, she went to the front door of the apartment she lived in above the shop and made sure to press the button that locked all the entrances shut and then went to her favorite fat and comfy recliner chair and melted right into it with a sigh. She reached for the end table next to her for the cigar box and the remote.

In the past few years, she and her family had had to get used to some rather frightening changes beyond the cosmetic (like having naturally sun-yellow hair, rather than grey), like the fact that, suddenly, they were all faster and stronger than should be possible and were also nearly invincible. They didn't want attention, just a quiet life. A safe one.

She snorted at that thought as she stuck a cigar in her mouth and and thought about her own life for just a moment. There were other changes they'd had to learn to live with as well. One of the most noticeable and, by now, most comfortable of which was the fact that all four of them could now sprout small gouts of flame from their fingertips, like she was doing to light her cigar right now while using the remote to turn on the speakers for some relaxing music.

As she took a deep breath of her cigar, she resisted the urge to spit it out. She took it out and exhaled a cloud of vivid purple smoke and let the music wash over her. For a moment, she contemplated her cigar. It was rather small, practically a filter-less cigarette, but it wasn't something you could actually buy. Other than the fact that it was homemade, it used herbs they'd had to grow themselves because they couldn't find them anywhere else, and had had to use the last cigar they'd had, which had some pretty crummy herbs when compared to all the others they'd ever had or smoked.

From what they'd been told and had seen, the cigars were far from healthy. But they helped Rose to calm down, and helped the four of them to relax and fall asleep at night, and to be honest, that's all that mattered. She knew Rose was a maniac, but she still didn't believe Snow's stories about the woman. And besides, they were familiar. They were a remnant of home.

The blonde gave a snort at that thought, as they were now living in the world of Remnant. She took another puff of her cigar as the song changed. Now, it was Money, by Pink Floyd, another remainder of what was left of home. Rather fitting now that she had a nice, steady income.

Then she began to sing along with the song. That was another pair of odd things about this new place they'd lived in for a little over 3 years. See, by a few months before their forced relocation, they'd all learned to sing well enough to calm Rose down during a panic attack. In fact, she'd been the last, and it'd taken her that long because she'd been unable to carry a tune so bad that she was banned for life from the bard's college when she'd tried to enter so many years ago. It's still weird that their singing was the only way to really calm the girl down when she was incoherent like that. However, while she'd gotten up to "Passable" as a singing voice before, here in Remnant, it was breathtakingly beautiful, even to her own ears, similarly to the others, and the four of them all gained crystal-clear memories that were diamond-sharp. The door opened and her roommate came in. She was the only other person who would be here today that had the keys, since they own the building. The blonde put her cigar back in her mouth as she looked her partner over.

The older woman stood taller than she did an had a perfect poker face decorating her fair feline features. She would never say that out loud, partly because of local racism against those part-animal people who were normal people, just with a few animal features like cat ears or monkey tails or other similarly non-disfiguring changes (what were they called again? Faunus, that's right), but mostly because she was still dealing with her childhood issues about those cute purple-black cat ears hiding among similarly colored strands of hair. Really, those ears and seductively cunning amber eyes are her only non-human traits, and they just made her more beautiful. As usual for coming home from work, she was wearing what the blonde thought of as a Russian Officer-style overcoat that was completely black except for the 4 golden buttons on her front above the oversized belt on her belly, the gold trimmings on the felt spauldrons and the golden buttons. And the grey armband on her upper left arm which is the same gray as her cuffs, other than a black flower printed on it. A firey belladonna, if she wasn't mistaken. Probably was, though.

Also as usual, she looked supremely confident and today there was a small smirk decorating her face, framed by that long black hair that high-quality silk pretends to be that was flowing as she floated along. Though, if you knew how to look, which she most definitely did, you'd notice she looked incredibly tired as well.

"Rough day?" The beauty asked.

The blonde nodded a simple yes and took another puff. Purple smoke once again decorated the air as she asked, "You?"

"Difficult, but worth it." The raven-haired woman replied with an air of satisfaction. She grabbed the fresh cigar thrown at her out of the air without deigning to look at it while going over to the fridge as the blonde waited. "Yes, I got the lube for you." She added in a bored tone as she grabbed a pair of ice cool unopened beers (sometimes, beer was left alone in the fridge until it was completely undrinkable. Not often, but it happened. Only to open beers though, for some odd reason) before she shut the fridge. It was nice to know she'd gotten it. The stuff was a little hard to get when they went anywhere other than Winter Rose and it was her doing the shopping, mostly because of her own impossibly high standards and unwillingness to get anything less for those dang rusty joints and checkballs in the various parts of various vehicles. What, you thought she was thinking of something else? "You look nice. Kind of glowy, in fact." She said as she came back into the living room and handing one of the beers to the blonde to open, the other already being sipped by the faunus woman. Damn she was quiet.

"Thanks, I just had a shower." It actually hurt a little that the woman hand't been looking at her when she said it. "So, what's the latest in my favorite cat-girl's life?"

Said cat-girl gave her a completely ineffectual light glare and gave a little head motion, telling her to turn on the TV, which the blonde obliged to do. "work, met someone idiotic, got stuck in traffic for 20 minutes." A shrug. "the usual. What about our favorite blacksmith-turned-mechanic, Dragon?"

Dragon glared at her, Oh, she was going to play _that_ game today, hunh? Well two can play at that just as well!"Well, _Blake_, I finished off the car dropped off last night, turned out to be a power flow problem with the Dust playing hell on the rest of the car because it interacted with Auras badly, which was a bitch and a half to replace as I had to take the entire thing apart just to reach the problem, which I've told off the manufacturer on before, and _then_ I had to put the whole thing back to together, which took _extra_-long because it fucking broke 3 of my bottom-dollar tools and my good stuff is locked up for absolutely no-_fucking_-reason, and _then_ on that truck, you know the one brought in for a tune-up and to fix a minor problem causing it to smoke like a steam engine? Well I broke a rusted bolt's head _and_ the wrench somehow, which would've hurt like a _screamer_ rather than a bitch and a half _and_ had to have a hospital visit to surgically remove said pieces of wrench if I wasn't that frickin' durable and _then_, my Easy-Out broke while trying to pull the rest of the bolt out too!" She was shouting by now, but they both knew she just needed to vent and wouldn't calm down until she'd had her fill. It was a relatively normal thing for the pair. "The _only_ reason that fuckin' shitty bolt is even on the floor downstairs is because I punched the truck and the threads opened up, which means I need a replacement!"

"Was it Aluminum?" Blake asked. She was asking if the part she'd punched was made from Aluminum, which wasn't as solid as steel. When enough pressure was applied to Aluminum, it would crumple and fail, which was good for some things and made them relatively easy to crush and also easy to get the parts for oftentimes, but if the same amount of pressure was put to steel, the part was simply sent flying like a meteor or a guillotine. The brevity of the question was partly habit, but probably mostly because Dragon was so angry and when she was on a roll like this it was easier to let out the steam if it wasn't allowed to build.

"No! It was one of those frickin' things that are supposedly indestructible! Hurt like a fuckin' bitch when I dented it. She had a feral smile as she said that last bit as she focused on the fact that she'd actually dented it. The smile faded as she continued. "It'll cost extra time and money to deal with that mistake, even if I _hadn't_ dented it, which means that I'll have to tell the guy his truck'll need a few extra days to get the part and install it and you know that _that_'ll be fun. Might overcharge him a bit more just for that." She had calmed down a lot by then, her last words a mutter that Blake wasn't supposed to hear.

"So, you're already overcharging him, huh?" Blake asked seemingly indifferently, but with a decidedly dangerous edge to her voice.

Dragon pointed her cigar at Blake accusingly as she defended herself. " "Hey, I am working a respectable and registered business, but I gotta make money so that A), I can keep up with the latest models and technologies so that I can actually work on them; B), to order the parts in the first place, which can reach thousands of dollars quick and easy in some cases; and C), so that I can pay myself a salary and your cut when you help as well. Otherwise, I can't eat, and I can't help. Besides, according to some buddies, I actually overcharge a whole lot less than most other non-cheats in the city and I do better work, which made a few of them say I should charge a lot more." They were all very valid and very true points, and that's not counting the side work she did for a whole lot less that also helped to keep her solvent.

"Hmm." Was all Blake said for a moment as Dragon finished cooling off her anger, eyes closed. Her words seemed to pacify her roommate, so they just sat there in the relative silence, drinking up the music and occasionally their beer. "Which part?"

Dragon was confused for half a second before she remembered their conversation. "Thirty-eight-oh-five. 28-inch." That was the part number for the supposedly indestructible Dust Regulator she'd destroyed, followed by the size of this particular model. It wasn't exactly the first time she'd done this, so they had a system down pat by now.

"I'll put in the order." Blake said as the TV was muted.

Dragon put her beer down on a coaster and nodded without opening her eyes. Then, no warning whatsoever, she sneezed, sending her cigar flying and a puff of heat, which was probably flame, after it. Oh, so that's what the problem was. For the car with power-regulation trouble. Dust-powered vehicles don't usually react well to Flame Dust. She'll have to tell Danny when she gives him his car back.

She opened her eyes and saw the cigar tumbling through the air and, completely on instinct, she dove after it and managed to grab it before it hit the ground. A second later, she realized that she must've been going faster than your average car can actually go. In truth, from what she'd heard, only Hunters can actually move faster than a speeding vehicle, and she wasn't even slightly winded. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but they were getting used to it, if ever so slowly.

A second later, Blake's simple response from the kitchen pretty much summed up the situation.

"That's still pretty freaky." Then, probably without realizing it, she displayed a similar speed as she went from the edge of the living room to the family PDA/phone/tablet thing (the Scroll, yeah, that's what it's called.) in the kitchen on the fridge in the blink of an eye, put in the order, and seemed to blur back to her chair as Dragon hurried to do the same. Still new, but they were getting used to it.

They relaxed for a while longer until the news came on. The TV was still muted, but they could see that it was displaying a live feed of the city of Vail, where they currently resided, as a large demonic creature was rampaging through the city towards the marketplace. The gigantic pure black creature with white bone plates with red lines over it's head and face and other areas that weren't protected by white bone spikes or claws looked like a very large bear. It was an Ursa, a fairly common Grimm, which were an ever-present threat to the people of Vail and the other 3 kingdoms of Remnant.

Dragon and Blake looked at each other for a moment, worried. They wanted to help, had basically lived to help for years as they killed Grimm, back before. But for the past few years, they had done their best to keep from standing out, and killing Grimm, especially in easy view of the public eye, was not something that really contributed well to that.

Then they saw 2 figures, on in red and black, one in white, chasing after the big black hairy bear-thing, and they relaxed a little. There were Hunters on the job (well, Huntsmen or Huntresses are the more 'proper' term, depending on gender, but Rose said Hunters, so they didn't really care), people who were trained for years to kill Grimm. They could probably handle it.

But then the decision was made for them. Through the special bond they shared with the others of the family, they felt the fear and anger of one of them powerfully coursing through, before anxious fear flowed as well. The anxious fear had come from themselves and Snow, which meant that Rose was in trouble! Knowing her, she was probably at the same area as the Ursa.

"I'm driving." Dragon said as she threw the keys to Blake. That way, by the time she got down to Blake and her homemade motorcycle, after grabbing her trench coat and weapons, of course, it would be primed to go. At the coat closet, she grabbed her coat, a shotgun, and a sword for herself, a rifle for Blake (who probably still had a sword from her earlier travels today), and an emergency sword for Rose, just in case. Snow could take care of herself. She strapped the swords to her back, under the trenchcoat, and hung the shotgun by it's strap over her shoulder, keeping the rifle in her hand as she ran for the balcony. She leapt off the balcony to land next to the 'cycle, whereupon she tossed the rifle to Blake and jumped on, enjoying the feel of the motorcycle's smooth rumble for a split second before putting her head back in the game as she waited for Blake's signal that she wouldn't fall off.

"Floor it."

'Don't need to tell me twice.' Was Dragon's only thought as she put the pedal to the metal. Hopefully they'd make it in time.

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><p>"Where are you Rose?" Snow asked the air worriedly. She was pacing a hole into the floor as she waited for her roommate to show up. "We were supposed to have take-out tonight and I don't know the numbers or where you put the menus." She griped softly, trying to distract herself from her relatively minor worry about someone who has proven capable of keeping herself safe and sound, unnoticed to boot. "Hell, you were supposed to be back an hour ago because shoe shopping on our budget is really quick according to you: just find a pair you like the look of that'll be useful that fits and walk out with them after paying, like a regular guy. And yes, I know that it takes like an hour to get there on foot, because you like walking, but this is getting ridiculous!"<p>

Snow froze as she heard the police radio Rose had insisted they buy and keep on all the time crackle to life. Normally, Vail was a nice and fairly crime-free place, so it didn't usually do much more than take up space and money on their energy bill. Her first thought was that it would involve Rose. But then it turned out that it was just Dispatch telling car 21-C to check on a reported homicide, and she relaxed.

Then it spoke up again and she tensed, filled with dread as she listened to an officer's panicked ramblings.

"Dispatch! This is Officer Zib! I need to know what the proper code is for 'Get me the fuck outta here, there's a frickin' _Ursa_ on the loose!'? 'Cause I need to call in one of those." Officer Zib sounded awfully calm for having what was obviously his first encounter with one of the bear-like Grimm. 'Probably close to losing it' is what Snow's analytical mind said was most probable. Experience too, as she'd seen a few too many fellow Hunters calm to the point of hysteria, and a good number of those were ticking time bombs, waiting to go insane and start killing people.

That was when she decided to get ready, preparations and focus drowning out what the dispatcher said in return. if there was an Ursa, then perhaps killing it might distract her from the problem that was Rose.

"Oh, thank God! There are Huntresses here. Three of 'em!"

That made her pause. Hunters of this day don't tend to notice the outside world unless it has to do with Grimm or incredibly dangerous high-end crime. And someone asks politely. Why? Because just like an unattended Rose, Hunters, whether they be Huntsmen or Huntresses, are incredibly dangerous. What might take numerous ordinary soldiers to kill in 5 minutes, suffering heavy losses, would probably take a simply 'average' Hunter by themself 2 minutes to kill, suffering only minor wounds. It would take any one of them (Snow, Rose, Blake, or Dragon) even less time and they'd come away unscathed, but then they had higher standards than even the exceptional Hunters.

Either way, if there were Huntresses on the job, then she would not be needed. That, and she didn't want to get all messy.

"Wait, they're not Huntresses! They're two trainees and a fast girl with no shoes! I recognize Ruby Rose's scythe from last week!"

It was the "fast girl with no shoes" comment that got her moving. In a flash, Snow grabbed the white cape that she'd bought on a whim months ago and then the large sword she'd forged years ago with Dragon watching carefully to keep her from screwing it up as well as a pair of sub-machine guns that she'd sto- _scavenged_ from a pair of dead mobsters before she'd bought the cape and was on her motorcycle and roaring off to find her family member before Zib said "Ruby Rose".

Hopefully she wouldn't be too late.

* * *

><p>Also, this was most of my inspiration for the main characters' main appearances (and Rose's combat look, but not her normal look), other than my own brain and The White Rose of Vermillion (awesome story here on this site, by the way, you should look it up): funblade. tumblr post 89827001153/ xuunies-future -au-vn- rwby- sprites-finalized


	2. Questions from a Red Stranger

I'm happy! I already have a favorite and a follower! Hope I don't disappoint you! :)

Also, sorry about taking so long (as in, more than a week). I got distracted from typing this up by The Parallel. It's a pair of extremely well-done stories based on what might happen if a certain Spartan-AI combo were reborn years before they ever were in cannon, in the Origin, and decided to interfere and help out. Just trust me, it's absolutely awesome! It's also here on fanfiction . net. Just search for The Parallel: Two Corpses and you'll find it.

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><p>"Oh, darn you!" Rose lashed out at the latest source of irritation to try and stop the mocking voice, though she stayed careful of her strength as she glared and slammed it.<p>

"Game Over." The Light Gun Rail Shooter that had eaten all the rest of her spare coins before she could beat it announced to the world, oblivious of the death glares the machine was garnering in the process. "Try Again?"

"No." Rose spat out childishly. "Shut up." Then she rather maturely walked away without kicking it.

After a moment, she sped back to the arcade machine to put in her initials for the high score leaderboard._ No one_ would be stealing her high score. Not until she could beat it, at least. Probably in the process of beating the game completely.

Eh, she'll probably do it tomorrow unless something comes up.

After a minute of directionless wandering, she decided to sit on that park bench she'd noticed earlier; the one by the tree in the middle of the mall's quadrangle of green grass with a clear view on all sides. It was a nice place to sit unbothered by the people around her as they moved around in their lives, seemingly unaware of the danger they lived under.

Perhaps they actually were.

Still, it was a nice, unclouded day as the sun set, painting the sky with beautiful purples and oranges with red slowly creeping in, and the feeling of the grass under her feet once again was absolutely glorious!

Now, this was not to actually say that she had blown off Snow's command to buy shoes for herself. Any chance to spend their rather tightly-controlled money gifted in an act of love was a truly wonderful thing, even if it _was_ for buying shoes, the useless things. In fact, first thing she did when she got to the marketplace was to find and buy a pair of beautiful black combat shoes with solid silver buckles over the laces with red highlights in the laces and on the sides, which, now that she thought about it, actually reminded her of Penny's shoes. They were both high quality, the solidity, grip, and patterns of the soles were similar, and they were both incredibly durable, as well as having steel in various parts of the actual boot, such as a cup in the toe for additional protection and as a helper to kicks, plates in the sole for additional support/comfort and additional protection from underneath, and similar though smaller plates in the sides for even more protection.

Since just buying those boots didn't even take up half of what Snow had given her for them, she did a little wandering, looking for things that either struck her sense of fancy or really called out to her. Not much actually did, and they didn't really need anything at the moment, so she ended up just wandering for the most part.

That's not to say she didn't buy a few trinkets, including a few things that weren't all that important or amazing, but they were a start. Or something. In fact, she got incredibly lucky with one of the trinkets she bought, as it was something Dragon had lost a long time ago, and it was the last one in stock of a highly popular item, so she snatched it up as fast as possible. Even found something for Blake too! True, they each cost a very pretty penny individually, but they were close enough, which makes it more than worth it.

As for the time spent in the arcade, well, that was accounted for too. Snow's experience with shoe shopping said that it takes at least an hour if there are no distractions at all, and she knew that Rose liked to walk, rather than trusting most vehicles to get her where she goes, which took another hour to walk from the store to the market, and an hour to get back after doing the actual shopping itself.

It wasn't a trust thing, because she did actually trust them, mostly. She just simply preferred her own feet is all.

All together, that meant that Snow believed that it would take her a total of 3 hours if she walked like a normal person (which, she wasn't, what with her super-speed that she still needs a little practice with), which gave her a full 2 and a half hours to screw around after she found the shoes and then found a pair that actually fit, and that was without counting the extra time unsupervised she could squeeze out of the trip when you add in the extra half hour to hour and five minutes Snow would put in as needed when you take into account just how easily distracted the four of them were.

Rose smiled as she watched the sky. Today was a good day, and when she wasn't killing something or teaching or working at their General Store, she liked to just watch the sky. It was always interesting to see how it changed in a city. The few times she'd actually paid attention to the sky as a, well, child wouldn't be the right word, but before she met Snow- no, before she met Blake is a better- more accurate spot. Before meeting Blake, the few times she did pay attention it wasn't anything special. It was light or it was dark, and that was it. Afterwards, she found the stars fascinating. Pretty too.

The sky continued to darken from it's blazing ending as she thought about the time. If she still had another half hour or so before she really needed to get going to the store again. Well, maybe. Something like that. She smiled. Ooh, what to do, what to do

...

'Oooh!' She thought as her eyes widened and her smile turned to a grin when a small speck of white appeared. 'First star tonight! Good omen.' Well, the First star of the Night appearing didn't really solve her current problem, but it was a nice distraction for a bit.

"Weiss! Wait up!" A young voice shouted.

Rose looked away from the second star that appeared, close on the heels of the first, to find out who had shouted and-

The brunette blinked. Wait. What? She blinked again. Nope, still there. Freaky.

There was a red-frosted brunette that looked almost exactly like a younger version of her own self, in a combat skirt and corset combo (nice combat boots though. Wouldn't have gone for the laces or stockings, but it works), chasing after a clearly steaming snow angel, who looked like a younger version of Snow, complete with Prim and Proper Poise and Posture and an icy wall around her emotions to keep others out and never be hurt.

And the precisely pony-tailed ivory girl probably didn't realize that she'd most likely long-since allowed her walls to be broken down enough to let in the other girl, and make her precious, make her hers.

Rose still remembered when she first realized that she'd done that with Snow, and remembered even better and more fondly when Snow realized she'd done it too. Ah, good times. Almost as good as the feasts they'd had after.

She stood up with a happy sigh. Well, at least she has something to do. Better than pattering around in the store, waiting for someone to come in and spend money.

Using her 'Super-Speed', she blurred over to put a hand on the young brunette's shoulder. When she turned to look at the person keeping her back, Rose shook her head. "Don't. She's obviously very angry, and it's probably best to leave her alone, allow her to calm down and cool off before trying to fix whatever it is needs fixing, okay?"

The girl was extraordinarily hesitant to go along with it, so Rose added in "Don't worry about her. From the way she walks with that sword on her hip, she's obviously got combat experience and at least some skill with that sword. That means that she can keep herself safe. She'll be just fine." After another moment, the girl nodded, agreeing to let the other girl go. Rose nodded, acknowledging the girl's acquiescence. 'I should keep her distracted. She's obviously worried, but she just needs to wait for the other girl to come back.' "So, what's your name?" She started simply.

"Um, it's Ruby." She said a little distractedly. "Ruby Rose."

Rose smiled. "That's a nice name." She commented. "Well Ruby Rose, my name, or what I go by anyway, is Rose. Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood." She offered a hand for shaking. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." Ruby said as she stared off in the direction the girl had walked off in, thus missing the offered hand. Rose wasn't offended. She knew exactly how the girl felt.

She let her hand drop and her eyebrows to raise as she saw the rather large gun strapped into a specialized holster over the girl's hip. "You're in a combat school?" Ruby nodded, still focused on where the other girl, Weiss, Rose thought, was going. "Lemme guess: Signal Academy?"

She shook her head. "Beacon, actually."

Rose's eyebrows rose as she smiled in surprise. "Beacon? I've heard good things about the place. Is it anything like the rumors?" She asked as she put a hand on Ruby's back, gently guiding her away.

"Actually," Ruby paused, still worried by her friend, until she took a breath and allowed the woman to distract her with a small smile. "It's even better."

Rose smiled. She'd be okay. "Well, why don't you tell me about it."

And so she did. It was rather amazing, like a fun sort of college, but with monster killing as well as studying others' mistakes and victories. The students tended to get up to wild shenanigans, especially wild given how psychopathic the general Hunter population has to be to willingly hunt down and kill Grimm, and that was something she could truly appreciate, like the way that the coursework was set up.

It almost sounded like a happier version of the Vermilion Hunters, Rose thought wistfully to herself.

She decided to confirm a few things she'd learned over the years, correct them if they were wrong. "You know," She brought up, interrupting the girl's story about one particularly memorable class that didn't go well. For attention spans anyway. Comedy on the other hand, was rife. "I never actually got a clear picture of this. What exactly _is_ Aura?"

Ruby blinked. Then got a confused look on her face. "How can you _not_ know what Aura is?"

Rose shrugged. "I know about it, a little, but like I said, I never really got a good idea exactly what it is. So, can you explain it to me?"

"Well, Aura is basically like an almost physical projection of our souls, which can then be manipulated by conscious thought."

"That really doesn't make sense to me. Could you explain that a little better?"

Ruby hummed in confusion, trying to condense and comprehensibly explain something that everybody knew and needed no real explanation. "Well, when I think of my Aura, when it's actively being used, it kinda feels like the winds brushing through my hair. When Yang's Aura is active like that, it feels a little like being next to an oven."

That's when it clicked for Rose. "OH! It's like the heat that comes off of a fire, except that it's Aura coming off of our souls!"

"Exactly!" Ruby exclaimed with a slightly smug smile on her face, an obvious feeling of pride written in her features, like a teacher being proud of a particularly fast student. She knew that feeling rather well. She remembered that especially well with Kor and Johnny-Boy. "Except that it doesn't just radiate the 'heat' of a soul's fire, it also makes us stronger. Faster. More durable. Able to fight for longer and recover and heal faster. And there are other, more physical things Aura can do, such as walking on walls, allowing a person to change direction in mid-air, and it can even be used a little like a force field, though all those uses of Aura are a lot more difficult and exhausting." Ruby lectured like an expert, making Rose smile even more at the girl.

They were now in the food court of the mall. She scanned the signs, looking for good food to share that would be good for giving a (non-free) doggy bag lunch. Then, once she knew what shop to choose, she distracted Ruby further with a question. "So, now that we've established what Aura is, what's a Semblance?"

Ruby took a moment to consider this subject as well before she began. "A Semblance is basically a more potent distillation of a person's Aura, and it's pretty much unique to each person."

"And what does that mean to me or the average joe without proper knowledge of what Aura is?" Rose asked, curiosity in her voice rather than an arch tone one might expect from her words.

"In other words, it's a bit like a personal weapon that only you can use. You always have it because it's a part of you, though you can't always use it because of exhaustion or other reasons." Rose picked out what they would be eating from the menu as Ruby continued. "Like me. I have an enormous amount of speed. Nobody else can ever keep up with me when I really really try."

That reminded Rose of her own 'super-speed' actually.

"Then there's Yang. She's my sister, she's going to Beacon Academy too. Anyway, she tends to let out flames when she's angry and when she's hurt, she actually gets stronger and more difficult to destroy."

Hunh, that reminded her a whole lot of Dragon, as well as their indestructibility and the little flames they can use.

And, it's kinda odd how the line in front of them for the food suddenly seems a whole lot longer.

"Then there's Blake, she's a part of my team, and she's really awesome! She's like a ninja, and her Semblance allows her to create little images of herself. They don't last long, but they're good distractions and she uses them a lot and really well."

Rose stopped Ruby's gushing with a quick question. "So, it's true that Beacon students are put into teams almost immediately."

Ruby nodded. "I'm the team leader, though Weiss thought she should be for awhile." She said, her melancholy quickly returning.

"I take it that Weiss is the person in white who was angry earlier." Rose stated simply.

Ruby nodded, sighing as her mind returned to whatever problem was going on between the two of them.

"What's got her so angry?"

"I just... I don't know." Ruby admitted downcast. "I mean, this morning we were fine. Things were fine. Then around lunchtime she just clammed up, giving all of us the cold shoulder and refusing to talk except when it had to do with our studies. And a few minutes ago, I mentioned something and she just turned around and left me behind. I was trying to find out what went wrong when you suggested I let her go. I feel really bad. I'm such a bad leader."

Rose put a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Hey." She said softly. "There are far worse leaders than you, and you did everything right as you knew of it." She thought back to what she remembered of the other girl's appearance, and realized something. "Would I be right in assuming that Weiss is Weiss Schnee, Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company?"

Ruby nodded, and Rose nodded in return as the facts fell into place. The SDC was a very powerful company, perhaps capable of practically controlling the entire Kingdom of Vale just through legal means and the influence the Dust it sells seems to carry with the rest of the world.

Weiss would be Kalt Schnee's daughter; born rich with money and influence - partly from the influence of the company she'd inherit one day - but she wouldn't have had a happy childhood. From what she'd heard of Kalt's younger days, he was a manipulative, control-freak bastard with a cruel streak as big as her own, and his wife, Lutaris, had died soon after giving birth to her twins, Weiss and Winter. That was all a matter of public record, other than the rumors from Kalt's childhood, but it was needed information for how she would deal with this. It also told her what Weiss's abilities were centered around and what sort of person the girl was to have survived such a situation.

"Weiss's Semblance is Glyphs, right?" Rose said to distract the girl again.

Ruby nodded, but Rose shook her head with a smile. "Actually, Glyphs are how we see the interaction between Auras and Dust. I know from experience, as all my family can use Glyphs in the exact same ways." At Ruby's confusion, she patted Ruby's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Just ask the girl later."

"Okay." Ruby nodded in assent. "So, what's your Semblance?"

"Don't have one." Rose said simply.

"Oh, so you haven't figured it out yet." Ruby said, nodding in understanding.

"Actually, I said I don't actually _have_ one. Like, at all." Rose corrected gently. "Can't exactly have a Semblance if I don't have an Aura."

"Wait, how can you not have an Aura? Everyone has Aura, even Jaune! And that's because it comes straight from their souls."

"Well," Rose said speculatively. "I may actually have a soul, as pathetic as it would be if I do, but I don't have an Aura." She held up a hand as Ruby opened her mouth to respond. "Just trust me on this, okay?" They were almost at the cashiers now.

"Are you sure you don't have a Semblance? Maybe it's not exactly obvious, like Pyrhha's control over magnetism?"

Rose froze and put a hand on Ruby's shoulder, stopping the girl mid-sentence. "Wait." She said seriously, most of the emotion drained from her voice. "From what you said, Semblances are basically secret weapons that are different from person to person. Am I right?" Nod. "Then don't just tell whoever's around another person's Semblance! I mean, yours I can forgive, because you're sharing. Yang's was a little iffy, but it was either obvious or not something I could do anything about, and she's your sister. Blake's are apparently a really big and obvious part of how she fights and I'd be able to figure them out quickly enough. But that last girl's Semblance, from what I've seen, is a very closely protected secret! Something that others could possibly use against her! Something _I_ could use against her! Why would you even tell me?!" She exclaimed.

"Because you seemed like a nice, trust-worthy person." Ruby said flatly. Her face was a stony wall and what appeared to be anger, but not on a scale you might expect from such a kind, energetically happy young girl. This was real and proper rage. And if there was anyone who could identify rage, it was her.

Rose blinked at that, deflating a little at the praise hidden in the relatively soft rebuke. "Well, um," She sighed, letting the rest of her anger fade in favor of appreciation and allowing the girl her delusions as she paid and took their food. "Thank you, for the compliment. It's not often I'm called that." She put on a smile for the cashier as she paid for the food and took it. They walked over to a table in relative silence, the hubub of the shoppers around them keeping away the quiet, until Rose mentioned, "I wouldn't've realized that you could have that much rage in you, Ruby."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" She asked defensively with a pout, her anger very cute this time instead of menacing.

"You're too cute. Naive too." Rose said casually as she sat down. "I'd expect the powerful kind of anger you showed when you complimented me from someone like me. A real and proper monster." She said it without rancor, as if what she was saying was just another turn of phrase. Which for Rose, it was.

And more importantly it was true.

"You're not a monster." Ruby said in such a hilariously serious tone. "You're a nice person."

She tried to hold it in, she really did, but she just couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled out because of what the girl said and how she did it. When she calmed down, she apologized. "I'm sorry Ruby, it's just," She gave a last happy chuckle to get it all out of her system before finishing with a smile. "I really am a monster. But it's nice of you to say such things." She took the plate full of noodles and chicken and sauce and placed it in front of Ruby. "Eat. You're skinny." Was all she said at Ruby's confused look before digging into her own food, a pile of macaroni and cheese mixed with cheese-infused hamburger and just a tad bit of red sauce. The people over there knew her, so they knew what she liked. Ruby's food, on the other hand, was just a guess, though it seemed like she was still pretty good at guessing, judging by Ruby's happy face.

They began and finished their meal in the comfortable silence produced by Rose's command.

* * *

><p>AN: you know, to be honest, I was going to continue this, but as mom said, right there is a scene finisher, and while I had planned to get to the Grimm killing before the end of this chapter (like the scene break in the physical writing was), I got a little stuck with writing new stuff basically on the fly to cover a section that I left off in the writing, and this much is clear enough for now, so here it is! Hopefully, I'll have the next section done by the time we get to next Saturday (or maybe Sunday. Maybe).

So, in summary, have fun! Please comment and just LET IT RIP! and may God give you the strength to live another day happily!  
>See you next chapter! :)<p> 


	3. An Ursa on the Loose!

A worried sigh came from the girl in white. Where is she? Where did that stupid dolt go?!

Stop. Breathe in. Hold, breathe out slowly. Now think back. Where did you last know where she was?

They were next to the mall. She'd been looking at a music store for any additional music she might want for the times when she was alone. She may not have much music, nor does she really listen to it much, but it does come in handy for her own personal time. The soothing strains of orchestral music was always a boon to her soul.

But then again, almost nothing from before Beacon has ever gone smoothly whenever Ruby was around. It wasn't that she didn't like the girl, and even if that was so then at least she respected her team's leader, but the girl was such a hyperactive spaz! Zero social skills, awkwardness that got in the way any time the situation did not have to do with combat or her weapon, and a complete inability to control herself!

Stop. Breathe in. Hold, breathe out slowly. This is not the time to rant to yourself about her shortcomings. This is the time to find her.

That's right. She got angry. In fact, the anger Ruby had caused was so great that it had actually blurred the memory of the reason why she was angry. She had then stormed off, muttering silent invectives to herself as she steamed about whatever it had been, before she stopped herself after starting a minute dissertation in her head about why she would find killing a Grimm a very relaxing form of stress relief. Namely that, despite the danger, it would include a physical workout that would work out the physical component of her stress, and the relative cleanliness of the task, even _if_ she was hit by the Grimm (protected as she and her clothing was by her Aura), appealed to her high-class sensibilities as the Grimm itself would dissolve after death.

After stopping herself, she'd realized that her partner was no longer with her. She was now in unfamiliar territory without backup. She'd nearly had a panic attack, just like what she'd just stopped a little bit ago, before the infamous Schnee composure kicked in and she set her mind to finding the hyperactive girl.

That was several minutes ago, and now she was back at the shopping center from earlier. The only thing keeping her from heading straight back to the airship back to Beacon (as it was getting dark) was the fact that she couldn't find the girl! She wasn't moping where she'd left her, so therefore someone had interfered somehow... at the moment, though, that was immaterial.

If she didn't leave with whoever helped or stopped her, then where would she be?

Assuming, of course, that she was alone, or away from whoever that was, as the alternative wasn't a lead she could readily track down, and that would lead to just waiting for the girl to come home. Not something the heiress was really good at.

Possibilities: Fun, food, and distraction are the most likely, and if those don't pan out, work it out from there. Since she didn't see any indication that being distracted by a shop would cheer the girl up, like it might for a normal teenager, she basically ruled out distraction out of hand.

Her rumbling stomach told her to go for food first. If Ruby had kept up with her current too-sweet diet, then she would be looking for nutrients, which meant food, and the two girls in Team RWBY kept up a similar eating schedule, so if Weiss was hungry, then so was Ruby.

She checked the sweets shops first, but finding neither hide nor hair (nor any other sign she'd been there in the past hour, as signified by the lack of damage. Whether that was actually just a figment of her imagination, on the other hand, was a subject she blatantly ignored.

She grabbed a small cold-cut wrap from a vendor on the way to her next destination. It would keep her fed until she could get a more proper dinner and a part of her claimed that she could now say she'd had her salad for the day. She ate the wrap while searching the weapons shops that happened to be on the way from the sweets to where most of the food was located, and while it was a likely target, she didn't find the girl there either.

So, next stop was general food area, the food court, as the directory sign called it. A few people had seen the girl, and one particular shop, a noodle shop she'd never heard of before, said that she'd been with a long-standing customer that truly enjoyed their food. Apparently, the woman had fed the girl, and the two also seemed to look alike. That did not precisely sit well with the girl for some reason, though whether it was the idea of someone looking like Ruby or someone with a near-identical destructive personality (which was truly shudder-worthy), Weiss wasn't entirely sure. The cashier's directions sent her towards her final, rather distasteful destination. One she was dreading with most of her being.

The mall's arcade area.

Definitely _not_ familiar territory for the rich girl.

The lights were bright and blaring in the darkened space, the sounds a cacophony of noise that kept her off-balance, and she was looking for a small collection of white and red in black clothing inside a dark, black room. It was starting to give her a headache.

If it weren't for the urgency, she probably would have simply waited outside.

She didn't bother to call out Ruby's name. It would most likely just get lost in the noise. She just kept on looking.

After several minutes, she found the girl, playing a game with an older woman who looked much like her, though Ruby was wearing her combat skirt while the woman was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt with red accents on the shoulders and sleeves, black faux-military pants with red side pockets and no shoes. Surely someone would have noticed her lack of shoes and thrown her out by now. The joy on Ruby's face made her angry, as Weiss now believed that her teammate had abandoned her to have some unsupervised fun. A part of her knew she was being irrational, but the rest of her didn't care as she got angry again and began to stalk over to the two, knocking over a few careless people who got in her way in the process.

She saw something happen on the screen they were facing that caused a large message in a small "explosion" to appear on the screen. She wasn't sure what it said, but it caused Ruby to be really excited for some reason.

She was closing in and was nearly in what was the normal earshot range as the two faced each other and bowed. The older woman said a few words before some careless peon got in her way, which caused them to cry out, which caused the woman to notice her. She smirked for some reason before turning back to Ruby and saying something that was lost to the noise but that she almost heard before the woman put a hand on Ruby's shoulder and shoved. This sent the brunette stumbling in her direction, and as she wasn't expecting it, nor could she see a way to dodge, the two partners were quickly sent to the floor in an undignified heap.

This made the woman laugh at their expense, which irritated Weiss and her pride a whole lot more.

She got back onto her feet as the woman calmed down and smoothed out her white combat skirt of imaginary wrinkles as she tried to keep composed and the woman calmed down. She opened her mouth to speak but Ruby beat her to it.

"Why'd you do that?!" She exclaimed indignantly.

"Because I wanted to." The woman said with a smirk. "Normally I'm not that mean, but your friend was coming and this let me head that problem off at the pass."

"And what's that supposed to mean?!" Ruby shouted angrily.

The woman raised her eyebrows at the question and gestured at Weiss. "She's still angry." She opened her mouth to continue, but then paused. "Actually, I think that was jealousy I saw." She pursed her lips before shrugging, nonchalantly ignoring the outraged face of the girl in the white bolero jacket and the sputteringly red face of the girl in the red hood. "Could be wrong though. I'm not good at almost anything other than killing."

"Then how did you beat me at KFA3?" Ruby asked, her tone half curious and half something else that Weiss couldn't properly identify that was some cousin of outrage. After a half-second of confusion, Weiss saw the name label on the game the two had been playing with the provided joysticks was called "King of Fighters Arena 3". Well, that makes some sense at least.

"Fighting games like that are just another form of killing, that's all." The woman said dismissively. "Now, on to business." She said as she straightened and turned to Weiss. "Don't worry so much about your partner. She can take care of herself and I only distracted her from worrying about you. Now that you two are back together, we should probably leave, as my roommate is probably just as worried sick about me as the two of you were about each other, and it's almost closing time at the store. I think." She shrugged. "Either way, she'll have my hide if I don't show up soon."

Weiss blinked as she processed the rapid-fire information upload that she had just been force-fed. When she was all caught up with life, she was significantly less angry at life than she was earlier, and the rest would dissipate by bedtime. She shook her head to get back into the moment, and then squinted as she noticed a discrepancy. She then looked over at Ruby, then back at the woman. She tried to phrase it in a polite manner. "Why is your face shiny?" Well, wet would've been a better word, but the words were already out, so no changing the damage already done.

Ruby giggled as the woman took on a vaguely offended expression. "Rose decided to wash her face while we were in the bathroom." Ruby explained with a smile. "But no soap. Just water from her hands to her face, just like a cat."

Weiss gave the two of them a look that told them that she found them to be very strange.

"Hey, it is a natural, primal instinct to be clean, okay?!" The woman said defensively, though there was a smile on her face. "Now come on, time's a-wastin'!" She said as she began to usher the two present members of Team RWBY out of the mall's arcade into the blessed silence of the street outside. The Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company relaxed, uttering a soft sigh at being away from the deafening pandemonium. They were following the woman down the street now, who appeared to not be bothered in the slightest by her lack of footwear.

Weiss took this moment to ask a question that was on her mind. "Who are you?" she asked of the woman she was following.

The woman paused and turned to her, an expression of consideration on her face. "Well, these days, everybody calls me Rose, so that's what I call myself. If you're asking what kind of people I am, then I'm not actually a people. I'm just a monster. Like you two are." She started to turn away, to leave the ponytailed girl to her agitated confusion, but then stopped and asked Weiss a question before the girl could react further. "Weiss, you're the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, right?" The girl nodded uncertainly and the woman pressed on. "So it follows that you would know Dust rather well, having had such a personal history with the stuff, right?" The girl nodded again, unsure of where she was going with this. "Well, in your experience, just how explosive would you say raw Dust is?"

Weiss considered the question before she began to answer. True, there were some things that she could not say, as they were things that only the Schnee Dust Company knew, but there was enough in the realm of public knowledge that telling her a few things would be okay. "Well, that would depend on what form it is in: ground to a powder or in crystal form, and then it depends on the way it is used. For example, my weapon, Myrtenaster, uses powdered Dust for various effects." She said as she patted the trusty Multi-Action Dust Rapier at her hip. Right inside the spiked hilt of the weapon was a revolving chamber filled with Dust of various types in powdered form, similar to a revolver's chambers. When one of the chambers was active, then various effects could be drawn from the weapon, such as a trap hidden in the ground, a wave of elemental fury sent out at an enemy, encasing an enemy in ice or keeping them stationary, whether they were on the ground or not, and other effects as well, including giving her additional strength or the ability to manipulate gravity to a minor extent.

"Well, what if I were to break a piece of Dust crystal in my hand,-" The woman began speculatively.

Weiss cut her off. "That's not possible." She said with a voice of authority. "Dust crystal is far too strong for that."

The woman smiled patronizingly at her and patted her shoulder as she said, "And I believe you. But if I were to place a Dust crystal in a place where it could break, then would it explode?"

Weiss shook her head. "Not from the pressure alone. If it were to be shattered by an impact, then maybe, but other than that Dust requires some form of outside energy to activate, even in powder form, though it is far more volatile as a powder." Ruby winced at the reminder of how they first met. She'd tripped over Weiss' luggage their first day to Beacon and had ended up sneezing at some of the powdered Dust she'd had brought for her weapon and studies, causing an explosion. "Even if the outside energy source is as small as a gun's firing pin or as large as a person's entire Aura, it still requires an outside source."

"So, in other words, my hands wouldn't work to set of Dust, but a spark or a fire will." The woman said in a tone that requested confirmation.

Weiss sighed, unconsciously adopting the tone that generally said, 'I can't believe I'm actually explaining myself to an idiot like this.' before she said, "Yes, a fire will likely set off a crystal, though that won't nearly get the sort of reaction that a person's Aura will.

"So, how easy is it to activate powdered Dust?" She asked curiously. "Like, besides fire and Aura, what could cause it to activate?"

"Oh, it could be almost anything." Weiss said casually. "Even something as little as a _sneeze_ could set it off." Ruby cringed at the further reminder.

"I said I was sorry Weiss." Ruby said plaintively, though Weiss pretended not to notice.

The woman smiled. "You know, that actually reminds me of Dragon." She said fondly. "She's a mechanic, so she tends to end up covered in Dust, especially on days with _really_ busted vehicles. She's gotten herself frozen solid before because of Ice Dust that would crawl up her nose."

That caused Weiss to blink. While she considered herself a competent Huntress and a perfect model for being the SDC's future figurehead, she would admit, if only to herself, that even she can be thrown for a loop, and this time she wasn't able to react before the woman looked at her wristwatch and make a big show about being late that didn't really penetrate into her mind before the woman simply left. When she was finally capable of reacting, she turned to her cookie-loving partner and said, "Who _was_ that?"

"Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood." The other girl said with a shrug, appearing about as clueless as she felt.

And so they just stood there in mutual confusion for a few moments.

They were about to leave when _it_ started. The event that would change their lives forever, and it started with a bang._  
><em>

* * *

><p>Rose smiled to herself. That was a rather smooth method of escaping, if she did say so herself. She'd exclaimed about the time while looking at her (nonexistant) watch before giving them an apology and Weiss a thank-you for the information before using the "Super-Speed" to simply disappear into the crowd.<p>

Of course, it's not like she'd actually _needed_ to do that. It's just that either way, Snow would have her hide stretched across the walls of the apartment, and the other woman was nowhere _near_ as pretty when she was yelling. Not something that she really wanted the two kids to see.

Suddenly, a Bang cut through the crush of people around her and she froze, though not many people around her did. Probably didn't hear it.

It was loud. An attack. Something powerful against a cut-rate shield. Perhaps a Beowolf. She relaxed a little. Anything small enough to get this far into the city undetected would be easy enough to kill. Her right eye hurt. Just a little, like a pressure rather than a pain.

Another bang, and this time she looked right at the source. It was a non-descript white van. There was a familiar insignia on the side, which was now heavily dented from the inside going out. It was right next to a Dust recharging station, as even Dust was not perfect, nor could it last forever.

The third bang showed sharp claws poking out of the metal, which got the people paying attention that weren't her to scream and begin to run. She smiled. Perhaps she'd finally get something that was worth the pretending she had to do to satisfy Snow that she wouldn't kill anything. After all, people and pets weren't allowed, nor were most animals, including birds, but _Grimm were!_ She thought to herself with a feral smile. The claws left her field of vision as she began to cut through the crowd to reach the armored vehicle. A little bit later, there was another bang, a _screaming_ of metal being moved against its will, and finally a roar that made her smile grow wide as she quickened her pace through the crowd as much as she could without actually body-checking the panicked crowd members out of her way. Snow would yell at her if she did that. So would Blake. Quiet, sneaky woman! Should've been born a ninja rather than a cat.

Dragon would just shrug in that apathetic way of hers that cropped up every so often and say that people were dumb and that if they weren't smart enough to get out of the way of a determined Rose then they deserved what minor pain came to them.

When she finally got free of the crowd, she fought back a scowl to let her smile stay around. After all, just because she was too late to be the first one there didn't mean that she couldn't still have fun, it just meant she had to be a little more careful. The fact that it was the two girls from earlier mattered very little to the woman.

She was happy to see what she saw. An Ursa had climbed out of the side of the van, obscuring the insignia while it was at it, and the black bear-like creature roared, its white-masked head raised to the sky as it crowed it's bloodthirsty cries of victory on escape and readiness to eat.

Now, that was a thing that often struck Rose as odd, and those things on that particular list were very few. Unless a Grimm was a truly blooded Grimm, they didn't need to eat. Not at all, not one scrap. And yet they ate people whenever they could. Any person hapless enough to be in range without protection was fair game, and those with protection such as swords and spears and shields and, nowadays, guns, were also fair game. You just had to be more careful around those.

That was when Weiss struck, bolero jacket, skirt, and ponytail flaring up with the wind as it passed by. Seemingly lightning fast, she sped up to it and slashed it across the chest. What surprised the girl was how little damage her strike appeared to do. Then Ruby came up with this huge scythe - oh, her large gun unfolds into a scythe that was a lot bigger than she was. Imagine that - and sliced it down onto the creature's neck like a pickax. A spurt of blood came out of the creature, surprising the girl when it landed on her, and that surprised the woman as well. She'd been wondering how a blooded Grimm would stack up against an average Hunter in this day of Aura and Dust. Great chance to find out.

Unfortunately for her curiosity, she was far too eager and impatient, so as the Ursa batted the girl away, she ran up to it and gave it a solid punch to the jaw. It recovered faster than expected and sent a head-sized paw straight at her like a straight jab and, because of Snow's training rather than the instinct that she wanted to follow, she reached back for a sword and shield attached to her back and brought them to bear and protect her from the strike.

It was in that split second before she was hit that she realized that she'd forgotten any weapon larger than a dagger at home. Thus, she was launched across the street.

It was possible that she'd never live down the idiocy of how she'd looked right then.

The journey through the wall put her off-balance for a moment, and, once the world stopped moving on its own, she saw that the girls were driving the Ursa down the street. She shrugged and smiled. Well, at least there was still some danger to killing Grimm.

She patted herself down, checking for weapons. She knew she had at least one or two on her person, she just didn't remember what. Out of her right pocket came a semi-automatic pistol that Dragon had made for her some time ago. The pistol was loaded with standard Dust-driven steel rounds with no special effects to them. Almost a pity.

What wasn't a pity, beyond the weapon's actual size, was the dagger she had on her person. True, it wasn't a Dust knife - which she'd already made several of and most of which were currently at home - but this one was made of a special metal that she'd created. True, it wasn't the greatest quality, but what she called "Superior Steel" was very powerful, very durable, and could cut through your average Grimm like little else.

The only better things she'd ever made were Crocea, Mors, and Skinner. If you only count among her works made with Superior Steel, anyway.

She ran to the now-empty streets and stood there for a moment to aim. Then, she shot. The round hit, making the beast stumble a little right before Ruby cut into it again. Rose saw where Weiss was now aiming her next strike, and aimed there as well to soften the hide for her strike. The second round was perfectly timed to soften the skin and allow the rapier to slice along that point, spreading ice where the blade slid along and causing a tiny spurt of blood from where her spent round had gone in.

She sent off another round before she ran to catch up to the girls, what with the Ursa leaving the gun's effective range. Sure, she could still hit the thing, but it wouldn't be as accurate as she needed it to be.

That and they were starting to turn onto another street.

OOH! Cop. Poor guy. Looks freaked. I kinda wanna-

Nope! Still got an Ursa! One thing at a time!

Okay, Blake in my head. I'll kill the Ursa first.

Wait, you're not real! You're just what Blake _would say!_

caught me! Now FOCUS!

Rose turned the corner as she shook off her internal conversation and took aim. She fired once, twice, three times, leaving it off-balance enough to give the two some time to really slash it.

Then it recovered, faster than most Ursa would in fact, and started an overhand swing at Weiss. Just for the fun of it, Rose aimed at the Ursa's knee and shot. It hit, successfully knocking it off-balance enough to send the paw crashing into the ground rather than into Weiss, which allowed her to slash 3 times at the masked face, leaving fire all over it. Rose smiled at the effective tactic, then became more serious when it actively tried to slash at Ruby. She aimed at the other knee to throw it off balance like before. She pulled the trigger.

The gun clicked.

Shit.

Ruby was sent flying across the street to crash into a car, flattening it somewhat, and while Weiss was distracted by Ruby's pain, the uninjured girl got launched into a nearby wall, sending cracks flying through it. As she ran towards the Ursa, now more than a little mad, she took a more accurate look at it.

The bear-like creature's size told her that it was a lesser, younger creature, and the number and size of the bone spikes coming from it's back (only through the spine in this case) told her that others would classify it as an Ursa Minor, though they'd be rather surprised at how easily it had survived 2 Hunters-in-training from Beacon Academy, which had a search through a Grimm-infested forest as initiation. They'd probably killed several such creatures already. However, other than the blood, it definitely seemed more durable than the average Ursa that size should be and it recovered a lot faster, which meant it was probably a bit older than it looked.

She stopped thinking when she was close enough to slam a fist into its gut, then rake her knife across its face, causing it to stumble back as a line of black blood started to trickle from underneath the strange unbleeding mask that Grimm created naturally. A flash of white crossed in front of her, which resolved into Weiss after she gave the creature a Dust-powered slash that spread ice along its body, temporarily gluing it to the ground.

Rose jumped back, allowing Ruby to come in with a twirling whirlwind slice, hitting the Ursa once, twice, three times before she was past it. The girl slammed her blade into the ground as the creature roared in pain, allowing her to stop her momentum and have a more stable spot from which to fire her very powerful sniper rifle, which was still usable in the weapon's melee form, not something you really see everyday among those with such variable weapons.

The ice cracked as Weiss sped towards it once again with the help of a white glyph that looked like the snowflake on the back of her jacket, which happened to be the symbol for the Schnee Dust Company (probably the family crest), and the creature broke free just in time to avoid the heiress' hit, putting the girl off-balance and allowing the Ursa's sideswipe to send the girl flying into a nearby alleyway, seemingly unaffected by Ruby's powerful sniper rounds beyond small puffs of Grimm blood.

Rose charged in, intent on distracting the creature from Ruby, and slammed it with a hit to the torso as it stood up, then dodged the follow-up swipe to slam a fist into a bone spike jutting from its left knee. That got it angry enough to hit her, sending her flying into another wall across the street.

Disoriented and buried as she now was, she couldn't see how Ruby faired against it. She could, however, hear the sound of Ruby's weapon, Crescent Rose, went off a few times and the Ursa roared as well. Then things went relatively silent and she unburied herself as fast as possible to charge at the alleyway that she assumed the three were now in, given that that's where Weiss had flown to.

Why was she running after the girls? Well, most of her was really just running after the Ursa, knowing it'd be a greater challenge cornered as it was. But a part of her was running after Ruby. She needed the girl safe.

She could care less about people. People were many. People were cockroaches. They survived. And while Vale was home now, the way Haven was before, there were a lot more people, a lot more protectors, less need of her active intervention because of the walls which kept out Grimm. They could take care of themselves.

Ruby, however, was innocent. She reminded her of a few people, friends she'd failed to protect, and she had an innocence to her that made her a Paragon rather than a Villain. She still had much to learn, but that sort of naivety was incredibly rare and a precious thing to be protected.

But when she reached the mouth of the alleyway, she almost wished she hadn't.

For just a split second, she saw the Ursa pinning Weiss to the wall, while Ruby struggled back to consciousness from where she lay a short distance from the Ursa and below a crack in the wall, probably from when she hit it.

After that split second, she was pulled back into a memory, and she saw Snow White, pinned to a tree by a Greater Beowolf, left claw through her gut and right paw raised to slash. To kill. Blake was crumpled against another tree nearby, concussed and helpless to stop it. If she'd had time to think, she would've known that it was only a memory and shaken it off to help Weiss, but she didn't have time. No time to think, but time enough to react.

And so, she lost it, giving up professionalism for blinding rage and she screamed a battle cry and rushed the 'Beowolf' to eviscerate it. She'd almost failed Snow once. She wouldn't do so again.

With a headlong rush, she slammed into the Grimm, knocking it to the ground. Then she began to slice it to pieces with the dagger in her hand, going first to cut every muscle in the central bundle, thus basically immobilizing the damn thing so that she could more easily, and more safely, cut off its head. When it tried to snap at her, bite her hand off, she snapped a punch to the open jaw, which immediately shut with a satisfying clack, and then held it closed as she sliced the beast open, and a wave of black Grimm blood washed over her, ruining her clothing. Not that she cared or even noticed.

When the beast had stilled against the alley wall, she calmed slightly and turned to 'Snow'. By now, her altered perception caused by the forced reliving of such a powerful and painful piece of her past was starting to break apart, to crack and fade, which meant that she started to come back to the reality of the present, allowing her to remember that she was currently in a city rather than a forest, that it had been an Ursa rather than a Beowolf. That Dust was a powerful force that existed and could do many things.

But 'Snow' was still Snow, rather than Weiss, which meant that there was no choice for Rose but to heal her as best she could. Weiss, she could not have cared less about, but Snow was what passed for family with her. One of the few remaining pieces that she'd ever cared about from her past.

She tore off the girl's ruined jacket and cut a quick square out of the ruined section of the girl's combat skirt so that she could get to the injury and she paled.

The Grimm's claw had pierced straight through the top and whatever protection the girl's Aura had provided. In fact, it was probable that the damage had been lessened by the girl's Aura, if only slightly.

However, her examination of the wound and her reaction took almost no time and with lightning speed, she grabbed the few small Dust crystals she always kept on her person after seeing their use before screaming at the image of Snow overlaid on where Weiss lay, "Oh, you are _not_ going to **fucking Die on me! Not now, not EVER!**" And with that, she quickly turned the crystals into powder just from the sheer strength of her grip and put the powder on the wounds before she began to sew up the wounds that the Dust was already healing using her super-speed and the needle and thread that she also always kept on her person, hidden in a near-invisible belt she'd made back in the old days. Black today. It would look quite nice against the pale backdrop of the girl's stomach, though the blood would have to be cleaned away first._  
><em>

When she'd finished setting the stitches, she had finally worked through the last of the memory. Almost. She had one last second of perfect-clarity thought, which she used to see exactly what had happened. She was glad that Snow wasn't in danger, if she ever was today, that Weiss would probably pull through, that Ruby was starting to stand back up.

And that, if the past was any judge, then in a second or two, she would lose all conscious thought and processing power to panic and violent instinct until someone sang her down. The panic attack would be due to the similarity between what had just happened and what had happened all that time ago in the forest, and she rarely did things small.

So, she leapt as far from the two as she could, feeling her back slam into a wall as she curled up and held her knees to her chest as she shut down. Her panic became her entire world until she registered movement, and then a set of strong arms holding her securely in place before she registered the singing.

Flaws. By Bastille. Good choice.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she calmed down and returned to reality as the faces of two, soon to be four, worried faces appeared in her vision with a fifth one she knew to be directly behind her.

But from the way she was held so tightly, Snow was probably going to be angry with her. Someone was probably dead.

* * *

><p>AN: I am really happy! Almost immediately after I posted the second chapter, I got 2 more follows! :D

Hope you liked this chapter, the next one will be interesting! And somewhat painful for a few characters.

Also, I fixed a little problem in the AO3 version. So, yeah, that's a good thing.


	4. Well, that went well

Snow slowed the Dust-powered motorcycle Rose had insisted they build together for her as she neared where the whole mess with the Ursa had begun just a short while ago; the busted open armored van. She paused just long enough to see the symbol for Ice (not the Schnee Dust Company's elaborate snowflake) on the back of the truck and then sped back up, the urgency to find Rose and keep her safe still fresh in her mind. She wasn't as careful as she would be looking for someone else, but that's partly because with their bond the four of them could always point out exactly where the other 3 were, though it became less accurate beyond general direction the further they were from each other.

But even without that, all she would have needed to do was to follow the carnage. It almost reminded her of the old times.

The bike under her complained with an abnormal growl. "Hey, if she wasn't in trouble I'd have had no trouble babying you." She muttered at the bike without taking her gaze from the road ahead. Oddly enough, the growl went away, almost as if the bike was responding to her words. Snow shook her head at the thought and decided that she really needed to spend a little more time with Blake and Dragon, rather than worrying over Rose, if she were thinking so much like the brunette.

Besides which, if Rose hand't been nearly such a trouble magnet, Snow wouldn't have been pushing the bike to its absolute limits for the last 5 minutes and ignoring every _suggestion_ of a speed limit or common road courtesy to get to the woman.

She paused in her inner rantings as she slowed down to turn, since she was getting close to where Rose was, and shook her head to clear it of all errant thought. All that mattered right now was reaching Rose. She only noticed the fleeing civilians and the property damage at the periphery of her mind. Enough to dodge if need be, but not enough to care in the slightest.

She heard a startlingly deep bang! resound from somewhere ahead, down a street in the direction Snow was in. She slowed down further as she came to that turn and her heart nearly froze at what she saw.

It was a fairly large Ursa. But if just an Ursa was enough to give her a heart attack, then she was too damn long outta the game. Unless it was the additional shock factor of seeing three people bouncing around like bouncy balls as they attempted to kill the bear-thing, one she knew by heart and the other two simply familiar as Rose was sent flying once again. She instinctively reached for the pistol on her thigh, cursing when her hand only hit leather-covered flesh. As Rose rushed back in to attack, Snow watched the three fight. It was smooth, flowing gracefully like a river that she'd found once upon a time as the Hunters traded off attacks with each other expertly, as if they'd been working together, fighting together, maybe living together, for years, something that Snow knew was impossible, unless there was a rather big something that Rose wasn't telling her. Like some sort of cloning or Life Model Decoy experiment that she'd somehow participated in. Extremely unlikely though.

After all, she felt Rose's warm body warming hers as she fell asleep at night, almost every night. Though, that set of memories combined with watching the battle's flow and Rose's ferocious figure gave her a pang of longing for the bad old days.

The days when she and her family would hunt Grimm as they lived in those highly-infested territories. When they were constantly surrounded, outmanned, outmatched, and alone with no one and no thing to rely on but what they'd brought, what they could find, and each other. When they would live, staring Death in the face, and grin.

She shook her head, clearing it of memories and suppressing the urge to kill the monster as she noticed the police officer's car as she parked. She wouldn't have to go far after all, so why drag the bike along? Besides, Rose appeared to have the situation in hand. That wall though would have to be replaced.

Besides, she needed to know exactly what had happened, and who better than the cop who'd called it in?

She walked over to the car, mindful of the fight happening not all that far away, and found the cop cowering in his car, windows thankfully already down. The man looked calm, but from the look in his eye, he was just a step away from becoming a gibbering wreck. "What's going on officer?" she asked calmly. When he didn't seem to respond, she tapped his shoulder and he looked at her, a star-struck expression suddenly coming onto his face. She sighed and snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. "Hey, what's going on here?"

He seemed to snap out of his star-struck state and his face started showing a state of half-controlled panic. "The Ursa just blew right outta nowhere! And then those Huntresses showed up and people started running and screaming and I don't know what the Fuck to do, Okay?!" His voice held just as much panic as his face, though his volume didn't really get to shouting until he finished.

"Okay." Snow said calmly, considering what he'd said for a second, seemingly ignoring him completely. "Did it come out of a truck?" She asked him.

He paused in his panic as the memory came to him and training kicked in. "Actually, yeah, yeah it did." he sounded a whole lot calmer now. "And I think my roomie said something about the company he's working for doing something bad. Uh, who was he working for again?" He thought back with a lot of solid concentration while Snow thought about how similar he looked to Detective Burns. "Uh, Ice, Ice Dusk-elech, or something like that."

"Ice Dus-Tech?" Snow asked sharply.

His face brightened from confusion to confirmation. "Yeah, that's it exactly!"

"Hmm." Was all Snow responded with, absently noting that his nametag said P. Hepzibah as she thought and remembered. Ice Dus-Tech was in the news a few weeks ago because of a controversy involving their research into some theoretical applications of using Ice Dust for cold storage of live specimens. There were even rumors going around in the tabloids and coming from her customers that said they may have ignored safety guidlelines imposed upon them by the scientific community and went straight to storing live specimens without much actual planning or fact-checking, even including people in those experiments, Human and Faunus alike. If that image of Ice on the van from earlier meant that the van belonged to Ice Dus-Tech, then it would make sense, especially if they'd moved on to Grimm storage and were somewhat successful at that venture somehow.

To what purpose, Snow couldn't really find. Yet.

She froze when she first felt, then heard the rage coming from her roommate and partner. She abandoned the cop and ran over to the alleyway the scream had come from not far away, where the fight had likely moved to. She was completely unprepared for what she saw and even the comforting weights of a sword on her hip and the snub-nosed machineguns on her thighs could not stop the fear the bloomed.

No matter how many times she saw it, she would never feel comfortable with the sight of Rose going postal on a Grimm, mostly because when she fights like that ... Well, when Rose fights she is always quick and methodical except for times like this, when there is also a truly powerful level of brutality exuding from the woman that made her want to curl up in fear so powerfully that she wanted to right then and there.

She watched the bear-creature fall to the ground with a solid thump with a numb feeling in her heart. She knew it was just a part of who Rose was, but that didn't make her feel any better. Then she got a look at the girl slumping to the ground, barely conscious and bleeding out heavily from her stomach, a shiver ran down her spine. She'd been in such a situation once. It had not been pleasant.

She was still too numb to move, or even think really, so Rose got to the girl first. When Rose screamed "Oh, you are not going to **fucking Die on me! Not now, not EVER!**", a cold hand gripped her heart as a half-remembered pain and matching memory rose to the forefront. That was when she'd been stuck to a tree by a Beowolf. Blake had been knocked out by a highwayman before the wolf had surprised them and killed the thief, before Rose had caught back up to them.

She came back to reality as Rose was finishing up the stitches, which were well-done in Snow's opinion. And then Rose jumped back, curling into a ball with an all-too-familiar look on her face. One that scared all three of them, every time.

It was blank of everything but panic and fear, a panic attack. But in this state, Rose would not see anything. She wouldn't comprehend anything at all. She wouldn't remember, wouldn't understand, but she would act.

Snow sighed sadly as she shut her eyes to hold back the tears of seeing Rose in this state and ran her fingers through her hair to calm herself down, pulling apart the tangles in the long ivory tresses caused by the wind while unfettered by a helmet on the ride there. A ping on the emotional bond shared by the family told her that Blake and Dragon were inbound. Not far away and just as worried as she was.

She opened her eyes and saw the Huntresses-in-training beginning to stand and make their way over to see if Rose was alright. Poor girls. Teenagers that couldn't possibly be more than a year or two into their respective schools. Far too young to experience Rose and survive, especially with Rose like this. The huddled woman was now shivering violently. Someone would lose a limb if this wasn't handled delicately.

"Don't touch her." She said, her authoritative "Authority Voice" stopping them cold, the thought threatening a snort from her when she realized that she'd used one of Rose's more ridiculous names for things in personal thinking. She didn't need that while trying to give them orders to follow. When she was sure she had their undivided attention, she explained. "She's having a panic attack. If she was more or less normal, then I wouldn't interfere with this, but in this state, she'd likely tear your head off or beat you to death with your own arm. So, back off and let the professional 'monster-wrangler' bring the woman back to the surface." She advised the girls. She did have to put a little effort into not using her fingers for air-quotes around "monster-wrangler', but they complied.

Snow then crouched in front of the huddled woman, the handkerchief eyepatch threatening to fall off and her entire body showing the fear the woman so despised. Show felt her face run through the gamut of emotions that filled her in that moment; fear, sadness, kindness, apprehension, love, and regret with some pain mixed in for good measure. She sighed, letting her head droop and her face relax. "I'm gonna feel this one in the morning." She muttered to herself. Then she straightened and tapped Rose lightly on the shoulder.

Technically, her position wouldn't really mean a thing, as either way she'd be on the ground in a flash. But, in her mind, she figured that she'd at least be a little prepared and thus less likely to die.

Before she could even do so much as blink she was flying across the actually very wide alley (might as well be a whole 'nother street) and aching acll across her ribcage as she slammed into the opposite wall.

Okay, so she wasn't on the ground yet. At least she was right in that Rose was the one to hit her.

Completely on instinct alone, she used an ability she'd recently found she had which complemented her still-unfamiliar speed with stability and allowed her to meet the charging berserker as well as possible, given their power levels and current states.

Meaning, she launched from the wall only to get slammed back into the wall with a gut punch, but that short while gave her the time to deflect the oncoming right jab into the brick wall behind her and duck, which allowed her to gather her strength until she could launch the two of them, Rose first, into the wall on the opposite side of the alleyway, disorienting Rose in her non-conscious state just enough to let her spin Rose around and slam the pretty face into the wall a few times before grabbing both arms, crossing them so that they could be held by one arm behind the brunette's back and then enfold her into a highly constrictive hug, accomplished right before the woman in a berzerker state noticed this and started struggling like a wild animal.

Through all of this, Snow had avoided looking Rose in the face because that mindlessness that always appeared, it broke her heart to see it. She looked at the brunette, her sadness at what the elegant creature beside her was currently reduced to covering her face without her permission, completely oblivious of the two members of audience she'd gained just as Rose was completely oblivious of the rest of the world beyond animalistic urges and response.

Then she snuggled in closer to set her head on Rose's shoulder and began to hum. Then she began to sing.

"_When all of your flaws,_

_And all of my flaws_

_Are laid out one by one._

_A wonderful part of the mess that we made_

_We pick ourselves undone._"

She closed her eyes, letting the sent of pure, unadultered Rose fill her nose and mouth, and thus her entire world as she focused on bringing the 'monster' she adored back to reality.

"_All of your flaws_

_And all of my flaws_

_They lie there hand in hand._

_Ones we've inherited, ones that we've learned_

_They pass from man to man._"

Then came the chorus, and to her mild surprise, that's when Blake and Dragon showed up, singing along and using various items to add in the melody and the percussion.

"_There's a hole, in my soul,_

_I can't fill it, I can't fill it!_

_There's a hole, in my soul,_

_Can you fill it, can you fill it?_"

The hauntingly beautiful song echoed strangely off the alley walls, adding an ethereal quality to the singing that truly made it beautiful.

"_You, have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve._

_And I, have always buried them deep beneath the ground._

_Dig them up, let's finish what we started._

_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned._

_All of your flaws_

_And all of my flaws_

_When they have been exhumed,_

_We'll see that we need them to be who we are,_

_Without them we'd be doomed!_

_There's a hole, in my soul,_

_I can't fill it, I can't fill it!_

_There's a hole, in my soul,_

_Can you fill it, can you fill it?_"

There was a slight pause in the singing as Dragon sang out the melody by herself before they continued as a group.

"_You, have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve._

_And I, have always buried them deep beneath the ground._

_Dig them up, let's finish what we started._

_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned._"

Then there was a longer pause as they all sang the melody.

"_When all of your flaws, and all of my flaws are counted._

_When all of your flaws, and all of my flaws are counted._"

Another slight pause, and then more singing to finish the song.

"**_You, have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve._**

**_And I, have always buried them deep beneath the ground._**

**_Dig them up, let's finish what we started._**

**_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned._**

**_Ohhh. Ohhh!_**

_All of your flaws,_

_And all of my flaws_

_Are laid out one by one._

_Look what a wonderful mess that we made_

_We pick ourselves undone._"

Silence reigned as the song came to a close and the world retracted from the entire music-filled alleyway to just Snow and her beloved little monster. Snow took a deep breath to keep herself calm as she nuzzled Rose once more, an animalistic gesture that the woman always recognized, before she dared to open her eyes, not wanting to see the heartbreaking emptiness, even if the red-frosted brunette was still and had melted into the embrace after the short moment of struggling, and thus likely back to the realm of reality.

Rose was calm, a serene face with an ethereal beauty still flecked with Grimm blood that simply enhanced her beauty in that moment. She thought she'd lost all breath, but she was proven wrong when the woman she still held close opened her intelligent silver eye, and that simply took it away all over again.

Of course, the seclusion didn't last long and, as always, it was their raven-haired Faunus woman who had to be the voice of reason.

"Not that I don't mind, but you do realize that we had an audience for our little concert, right?" She asked in her normal near-deadpan voice, a hint of a smile showing through where Snow couldn't see it.

Snow sighed as she relaxed her hug. Well, the illusion had been nice while it lasted. "Yeah, I know. Didn't hear you roll up though." Which was surprising, given just how loud the darn thing was.

"Had a feeling is all." Dragon said simply, Snow seeing her shrug in her mind. "Cut the power on the bike back a block." Oh, that makes sense.

"Okay, just who are you people?!" An unfamiliar voice shouted, frustration lining her feminine qualities that somehow spoke to Snow's early training to be prim and proper, reminding her that they existed after such a long time living with the completely natural Rose.

She raised her head to look at the source of the voice and blinked, struck by just how similar the girl was to the image that always stared at her from the mirrors she looked at. Wow. No wonder Rose flipped out.

The Ice-Blue eyes staring intently at her widened in anger. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Snow slapped the hand that had been on Rose's arms up to her mouth as her eyes widened in surprise. "Did I just say that out loud?" She asked quietly, voice muffled by her hand.

Rose nodded and Snow could just imagine the smiling roll of silver eyes as Dragon spoke up. "Yeah, pretty much." She said as she put a heavy hand on Snow's shoulder. "But don't worry, we all know you meant it in a nice way."

The girl was now nearly eye-to-eye with Snow, other than the height difference, that is, even including the rather impressive height boost given by the shorter girl's tall heels and the lack of boost afforded by Snow's more sensible Converse sneakers. "And what possible nice way is that?!" The white girl demanded in a rather snobbish way. Definitely needs to loosen up.

"Weiss." The brunette next to the girl chided gently, which made Snow take another double-take at the way the other girl looked before she refocused herself and answered.

"Well, it's just that," She began a little nervously before she just gave up and gave it to her straight. "Well, you look incredibly like me as a teen. As Rose once told me, I was the prettiest thing in the world." Snow smiled with sad remembrance as she looked down at the ground as what had happened since then came up to remind her once again. Dragon squeezed her shoulder supportively as she finished with "but that was several years and too many friends ago." She tried to keep the broken sadness out of her voice, but didn't quite manage it.

Rose squirmed inside the one-armed hug she hadn't been freed from yet so that she could give Snow a hug in support. "You know, my opinion hasn't changed, Snow White." She said, adding in the formal Snow White to make the snow-haired person feel even better as they both solidified the hug. For 'an unfeeling monster with no understanding', Rose knew just how to keep a person in good shape, emotionally and otherwise.

"And neither has mine, Red Riding Hood." Snow said softly in return. A soft sound reached Snow's ears and she looked up at it through her eyelashes without moving her head.

"Guys?" Blake asked, still deadpan but with a note of warning in her voice, while Dragon squeezed Snow's shoulder tightlyu once, then let go. They saw it too. Sigh. Pull Rose in for a tighter hug, letting her know too.

"Yeah, I know." She said. She contemplated her life for a moment as she tensed invisibly and the two children in front of her family stayed blissfully ignorant of the danger. She decided that, while painful, dangerous, and vastly annoying pretty much all the time when Rose was there, and worrying when she wasn't, it had been worth it all the way.

Then it finished rising and she let go of Rose to reach for her heavy longsword. When it roared, she lunged at the formerly dead Grimm that had just stood up again, whose ripped-apart stomach was now actively dripping blood and innards as it roared at them, surprising the teens, but not the adults who'd seen, and thus prepared. Before the Ursa had even finished its roar, three separate swords had pierced its brain, one of which was Snow's longsword, one was Blake's thinner fencing foil, and one was Dragon's wider broadsword, while Rose came up from underneath to pierce the still exposed and newly beating heart. After a final moment of defiance where the beast tried to stay standing and strike, the body sagged and the paw fell limply to its side, the mass of bloody black fur now supported only by their weapons. Then Rose pushed it away as they retracted their weapons for cleaning in near unison, which this time was just a quick flick to the side (which caused Blake to turn to her and give her a quick "Hey.", which prompted a shrug and a sheepish smile from Snow) before they pulled handkerchiefs from various places to clean off what was left. Rose's was picked up off the ground and then retied around her head to cover her eye.

"I have had enough!" A young voice shouted, once again reminding them of their audience as Weiss' prissy little face shoved itself next to hers, which was rather impressive, considering how much taller she was than the girl. "I demand to know who you are!"

Snow gave the girl a sad and amused smile that she knew the others also had on their faces as she looked the girl in the eye. "Nothing special. Just a bunch of old, concussed and traumatized batty old Hunters who never really got used to living around people after so long around Grimm. That's all we really are. Anything beyond that you either don't need to know or is too much for your young mind to comprehend." She patted Weiss' shoulder, trying to comfort the obviously terrified girl who was clearly at the end of her rope.

Weiss opened her mouth to speak again, but Rose cut her off. "We're being deadly serious here. You think it's hard to deal with 3 heavy combat classes a week up in your castle at the top of the cliff?" Rose asked pointedly as Snow looked over to see Rose's slightly pensive look. "Well, Mr. Crowly says you two don't actually struggle with them, but the point is that plenty others in Beacon do. For us, those classes would be nothing more than a workout, rather than seeming life-or-death survival, regardless of how hellish it is. And when you start getting sent on missions, the absolute worst you'll likely get is a deep hunting mission where you'll have quality camping gear, plenty of food and drink, and lots of good bandages. What we lived through was worse than just hunting Beowolves and Ursai or the occaisional Death Stalker or Taijitu. We lived in those areas filled with Grimm of all shapes and sizes, wearing scavenged scraps for clothing, bandages, and armor." She paused.

"Using old or sub-par, easily broken weaponry if we didn't forge them ourselves." Dragon chimed in.

"Only having the barest essentials that we could forage in our one or two meals a day if we didn't catch game or give in and eat Grimm meat, if we had any, which almost always tasted terrible." Blake added in her wonderful monotone. "Especially Hydra." She quietly finished with a shudder.

"Though, that roast Nevermore we had that one time was pretty good." Rose added as an aside.

"Actually, we smoked it, not roasted." Blake corrected gently. "And it still tasted terrible. You just have weird taste buds."

Ignoring Rose's "Hey, I am not weird." and Blake's "Yes, you are.", Snow finished their list of how bad things were during the good old times compared to what the two students in front of them had to deal with, trying to get her inconscient family members back on track. "And for creature comforts, we usually had a blanket or pelt or two per person for bedrolls and we almost never got a shower or bath that didn't include a hot spring or a waterfall."

"And those waterfalls were always damn cold." Dragon added with a shiver Snow felt from three feet away. Rose tried to sneak away, and while Snow let her at first, she yanked the brunette back when she saw where the handkerchiefed woman was focused on. "No Rose, you promised me good takeout tonight." She said with as stern a face and voice as possible for her current gentleness.

Said woman turned her face to show her sparkling left eye with her face in the most adorable and wall-breakingly powerful pout Snow had seen in some time since she'd last seen a pitiful cat and dog that she'd really wanted to bring home, but was afraid they'd die too quickly from lack of care and food. And maybe Rose.

Snow's resolve started to crumble, and then even more when Rose said in this absolutely sad voice, "But, it's right there. It's been too long since I had Ursa. Pleeeease?" And even more when the lower lip on Rose's face slipped out and her face began to wobble as if it was about to cry. She stiffened her spine as she reminded herself of a few things about the woman in front of her and did her best to glare, rather than smile or give in, as she said, "No." As firmly as possible.

Dragon put a hand on Rose's shoulder that Snow could've sworn was gauntleted for a second before she only saw the metal-plated leather that the woman actually wore. Both women turned to the blacksmith to see what wisdom she could bestow. The blonde smiled. "Don't worry Rose. I'm sure you'll get some Grimm meat soon. Just not tonight." As if to punctuate this point, she then stalked over to the corpse and struck a flaming fist deep into the mass of black fur and set it alight. It did resist for a few seconds more than most dry things would resist, even given the extreme temperatures of that fire, but it did light like kindling, leaving the Grimm no further chance to revive.

That was a lesson they'd learned the hard way.

"I've never seen a Grimm leave a corpse before. Why didn't the body simply dissolve?" Ruby asked, morbidly curious as they stood there in the heat of the dead and flaming Ursa. "That's what Grimm do when they die, which is why scientists have such trouble learning about them."

"Well, that's because you were never in Vermilion." Rose said quietly.

"It was in Quarry Town that I saw my first." Snow added in an equally quiet tone. It had been a nice town before the Grimm had attacked, a short week after the two of them had entered.

"The Wilds to the north of El Barron's Keep." Blake said, a sadness to her tone that wasn't as easily identified.

"Garreth's Keep for me." Dragon added.

"As for why?" Snow sighed as memories assaulted her. Memories of friends asking that question and dying for the answer at the hands of the Grimm they'd 'killed' just moments before. "It was Blooded. They tend to live longer after that."

"The Bloodless ones that you're used to are just fakers." Rose added acidly. "No fun at all. They die when a sickly tree branch hits them."

"You know they take a bit more effort than that." Snow chided. "Usually, just an actual blade and a few lucky or strong strokes, but I can agree that they are sometimes no fun. Like that time in Patch."

"You were on Patch?" Ruby asked curiously.

Snow nodded. "It was well before you were born, but yes. A young man by the name of Oz helped out, as did a girl named Summer and another trio named Tai, Raven, and Corn, if I remember right."

"His name isn't Cornelius, he just looks like one." Rose corrected with an aggrieved tone. "Now, if you won't let me eat the Ursa, then let's get going." She said, slipping out of Snow's grip and heading over to the mouth of the alley. "Besides, the girls need their rest as they have school tomorrow. From what I've heard, Beacon isn't going to simply hand them good grades for showing up. Which, I approve of." Rose added as a simple declaration of approval.

"She's right." Dragon said, a shudder going through her after saying that. "You know, I don't think I'll ever get used to saying that."

"I already did a long time ago." Snow said simply as she moved to follow her roommate. She declined to mention the shiver that still runs through her spine, to this day, whenever she says it.

"I don't know what's scarier: my statement or yours." Dragon said as she followed along.

"Ditto." Was all Blake said.

Then they mounted their rides, two to a bike (Snow and Rose, Blake and Dragon) and rode off into the night.


	5. The Importance of Boxes and Pizza!

Well, in truth, the four 'old Huntresses' didn't actually ride off into the night. The second they all put on their helmets (which had mini-scrolls installed so they could talk to each other), Snow asked Rose a pointed question about footwear. Specifically, why she was barefoot when she had _specifically _sent the brunette off to buy a pair. That was then explained that Rose had stored her purchases in an alleyway a short ways away.

Specifically, a block from the mall at The Poker Hall, a technically illegal (by way of being unregistered) gambling establishment that all four of them happened to like a lot (though for different reasons, and none of them would really admit to it except for Rose).

The four of them slowed to a stop and Dragon shook her head, getting her free hair away from her face before shooting an apologetic look at Blake, who only shrugged and smiled in response, saying she didn't really mind. They dismounted as Rose and Snow did the same and the four headed for the entrance of The Poker Hall. They stopped right next to it and Rose turned to the wall. Then she pulled out a set of connected fake bricks and showed them what was inside. A good pair of buckled black combat boots and a pair of small boxes. In fact...

"Is that a ring box, Rose?" Dragon asked.

Rose smiled. "Yep. Found them at a pawn shop."

"You went to a pawn shop?" Snow asked, incredulously deadpan.

"Yep."

"And you bought _boxes_?"

"Nope, but I'm glad I did buy them." Rose said simply as Dragon twitched.

"...What?" Snow was utterly confused by Rose's statement. The girl always did like to confuse the heck out of them.

"You'll see." Rose said with a mischievous smile. She put down the obviously high-quality combat shoes and kneeled with boxes in hand. Her smile dimmed, though it never faded, and she spoke somberly. "Now, I know that this is kinda cheap of me, and this could never replace the memories of forging things by your own hand, but until we can get things that _can _be of that caliber, I hope that these will be good placeholders." First, she slid open the longer box, revealing a long, thin dagger with a few runes for decoration, some of which seemed hastily done and definitely familiar._  
><em>

Dragon gasped as she saw where she thought this was going. Rose was giving Snow temporary replacements of why they'd had before they'd woken up in remnant. This particular knife was a close approximation of the first quality knife Snow had ever forged by herself. It had been done while everybody else was sleeping and as a work of art, not a weapon (even if it _had_ been useful as such). Still, it was a truly amazing thing she'd done, and Rose handed over the replacement to Snow with reverence.

"Rose, you didn't ha-" Snow began to protest, but Rose cut her off.

"Oh, but I did." Then she waved at the knife in Snow's hand dismissively. "Besides, the dagger is unimportant. This, however..." She paused as she pulled up the ring box and opened it as if she was going to propose. It was a shining gold band with 2 sapphires embedded in the top. There was a third gem setting in the middle, but it was empty, and the ring itself was pitted and marred, but it was beautiful, and it was like the one Rose had found for Snow some years before that had been stolen by a magpie after a particularly bad fight with some Beowolves. They'd never been able to track it down, but Rose had remembered. Delicately and still kneeling, Rose threaded the ring onto Snow's left hand. Before standing, she held Snow's hand tightly, looking her in the eye as she rose, and stated, "Snow, one day I'm going to take away this ring and replace it with a better one, hand-forged and as beautiful as you are, ready for anything life can bring to the challenge table. Until then, this ring will stand as my physical promise to keep you safe and happy." Rose hugged the woman close. "I love you Snow White, and nothing will ever change that. You understand me girl?"

After a moment of stunned silence, Snow hugged the brunette closer as her eyes dropped closed. "Yes, yes I do. And I will gladly accept you, if you'll have me."

Rose snorted. "That's my line." She said irelessly and nuzzled in closer.

After a moment, they came apart. "Not to be a complete spoilsport, but we still need dinner." Dragon mentioned casually now that the moment was over.

"Nope." Rose said brightly. "I ordered on the way here. Pizza for the four of us."

"But you didn't ask us." Snow pointed out.

Rose gave her a smiling look. "We haven't had pizza in a while, we've pretty much exhausted all other takeout options for the next month or two, _other_ than pizza, and Blake and Dragon, who aren't going to simply abandon us after such a scare, haven't had a pizza in a while as well. Additionally, I'm the only one who actually changes toppings between pizzas, so 3 medium pepperoni, onion, and sausage pizzas, 2 for them to share, and a Large Meat Lover's with onion and their special ranch sauce for the 4 of us to share."

Snow blinked as she ran it through her head and came to the same conclusion as Dragon. "That's really well-through out." Dragon nodded her agreement.

Rose smiled. "Yep. Of course, that sort of thinking makes me wonder why Blake and Dragon haven't started making out yet."

"W-what?!" Dragon sputtered out, her face suddenly burning. It was true that they'd never actually kissed, romantically speaking, other than those two times (once was her getting antivenom into Blake's system and completely business, while the other was just to help hide in plain sight while trailing a guy who'd tried to kill Snow, which, also, just business. No romantic feelings whatsoever from that). She absolutely refused to make eye contact with Blake as she sputtered out "I-But, we- that's not-"

Rose's laughter cut off her protests, confused the blonde enough that she was more focused on Rose than spouting unintelligible words. "Oh, don't worry guys. I was only joking." For some reason, that one sentence disappointed her and filled her with more dread than most things Rose did. Partly from simply existing, but mostly from the feeling that there was another shoe out there, waiting to drop onto their heads and stomp. "I knew you guys were already that close from that time we all had Mergin Pox." And there it was, Dragon's thought popped up as her blush got even stronger. The mere mention of that particular disease brought back some memories, some pleasant, others, not so much, that basically told her that she should just give up and do whatever Rose wanted already (though, first step there would be to find out what that actually is).

Dragon was vaguely aware of Blake had been making the same protests, which was confirmed by the raging blush on the faunus' face when she chanced a glance. Though, there was a slight shifty-ness to the raven-haired woman that hadn't been there before.

Rose pulled her attention back to the red-frosted one. "Well, now that we've got that over and done with, let's go home and eat!" She said, jumping into her new combat shoes with that exclamation. "Come on! We gots pizzas tah eats!" And Rose scurried off to the motorcycles. Snow and Dragon looked at each other, shrugged, and ambled after their de facto leader.

Suddenly, Rose stopped, turned around and shouted, "FREEZE!", effectively freezing the three of them in place. "Back away from the door kitty kat!"

Dragon looked back and, to her half-surprise, saw Blake with a guilty expression on her face, hand halfway stretched to grasp the doorknob to The Poker Hall. "But-" Blake began weakly.

"No." Rose said firmly. "We have pizza. We do not need to gamble."

Blake pulled in a breath, centered her stature and gathered her courage, and then spoke boldly, hands at her sides. "One, two quick hands and I can pay you back for the entire month."

"No." Rose said. "Besides, I already told you you didn't need to pay me back. Now back off!"

Loss of stature. Yep, Blake was about to start whining. Honestly, it was amazing what Rose could do to the confident Faunus, and it was even more amazing the lengths said cat would go to to get Rose around to her line of thinking."But-"

Rose's hand whipped out from her pocket to point at the wall as if she was brandishing a sword. "I've got batteries! And I'm not afraid to use em!" Blake hesitated, then began to reach for the doorknob again, despite the fact that Rose was watching. Rose smirked. "Don't say I didn't warn ya!" Then she spun around, pointed at the wall, and gasped before saying "What is that?!"

Naturally, Blake couldn't help herself, and looked. There wasn't anything out of the or- a glowing red dot. Damn. Looks like she finally got around to fixing that thrice-darned laser pointer.

Must.

Resist.

Urge.

To Chase!

Blake, of course, was completely helpless against the taunting little red dot, and chased after it, which quickly led to Rose shoving a small bundle of herbs in her face, mint from what Dragon could smell from here, and Blake relaxed, pupils blown wide and body now languid. As contented purring began to fill the air, Rose and Dragon looked at each other. Rose spoke first, and then Dragon responded, both women using the same "your fault, your mess, you clean it up" monotone that was rather unique to this type of arguments in their experience.

"Your roommate."

"Your mint."

"You chose her."

"You found her first."

"You made her sword."

"You made her a Nevermore coat."

"You helped Minnas."

"You tried to kill me."

"And your point there?" Rose asked reasonably and Dragon scowled. Damn, true. Rose tries to kill everyone. That, and she'd already used it for this month.

"Well what about-"

"No. Your cat, you bring her home."

"But we're going to the same place anyway."

"Or we could just sit here squabbling until she wakes up and can choose for herself." Snow interjected amicably, as if this conversation did nothing but bore her.

Dragon looked over at Rose, who looked at her and shrugged, and so the blonde picked up the goober-eyed faunus and walked over to the bike, wrapping the woman around her to keep her from falling off, and the four of them sped off towards Winter Rose's General Store.

Pointless conversation was still conversation, and arguments were always fun, especially with Rose.

* * *

><p>The drive home was uneventful, the talking about their days over pizza fun and full of laughter at the funnier stories, and once they retired to beds (Rose's bed was a bunk bed with Snow snuggled up next to Rose and Blake and Dragon cuddled like normal on the top bunk, without a thought to Rose's earlier teasing) the 3 who weren't Rose were deep in thought until they fell asleep. Blake was purring deeply in her happy sleep, a commodity that was actually somewhat rare for them, and Rose enjoyed listening to the woman's second set of vocal cords rumbling like an 18-wheeler in the quiet room.<p>

Rose looked down at Snow for a moment before carefully removing herself from the bottom bunk, Snow making a small sad whimper as she left. She placed a Dust-heated person-sized pillow in Snow's arms, feeling a little guilty about it, but only for a moment after seeing Snow's contented expression come back.

Slowly, painfully slowly, Rose went through a series of stretches to check on her muscles. No matter how she may act, she knew that if her body wasn't in prime condition, she might let Snow down, let her die. And as durable as the four of them were, they were no longer children, and they most definitely weren't gods. Her face twitched as various muscles twinged, mostly from the earlier fight with the Ursa, but a few from previous injuries that had yet to heal. But, if it came down to it, she could always just kill whatever stood in her way, just like always. No injury could really put her down for the count, not like the Grimm of early existence or the people who'd given her the title of Monster.

That's what she was, after all. A soulless monster whom had been repurposed by a saint to defend, rather than just destroy. And that's all she'll ever be.

Almost as slowly as the stretches from earlier, she put on some clothing she had laying around, set up to make it easier to fight, along with the combat shoes she'd bought earlier, much as it pained her to do so, both physically and in annoyance. This time, she made sure to grab a sword before she left, and loaded for bear. Well, Ursa, but the worst case scenario was unlikely in the extreme, from what she'd seen of the continent of Vytal. Though, she hadn't seen all that she could, and she wanted to participate in this year's Vytal Festival, especially the tournament. Snow generally approves of those tournaments.

She stood and paused, looking over her loved ones carefully. It had been a while since she'd simply stopped and enjoyed the serenity of such a scene, with Blake and Dragon trying to eat each others' hair in their sleep and Snow looking peacefully asleep.

Rose didn't need sleep. It was useful, but not needed. Besides, she wanted to know something.

She grabbed her personal home-made Scroll from the desk where it was safe and sent a community message to Blake's, Dragon's, and Snow's Scrolls. Snow's chimed from the bedside table, where it was being used as a clock, and left out the now-open window to put action to the words inside the message.

"Hey. Sorry I left in the middle of the night, but I have an errand to run at Beacon Academy; You know, the huge castle on top of the cliffs overlooking Vale? Well, I should be home by, say, 3:30 PM if I don't run into any snags (like the greater Grimm in the surrounding forest or something like that).

~Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood"

A few seconds after Rose had left, another message popped up on their Scrolls.

"Oh, P.S. - Don't open the Shops, wear good combat gear, minus Snow's cape - Preferably, that is - and I kinda wanna invite Mr. Arbiggotti and Mr. Crowly for Dinner tonight. Just a yes or a no.

~Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood"

* * *

><p>Yeah, I know this was a shorter-than-usual chapter, but I got lazy this week and didn't write during today's rest day. No school (because I'm too sick to drive for an hour and pay attention and do stuff right) and no work (not scheduled), and yet, no writing done. Sigh. Oh well! Since I'm that much of a slacker, here's the good stuff that I actually have written and I hope you guys like it! :)<p> 


	6. Weiss' Team

A/N: I'll be honest with you, this chapter is going to be mostly describing who Team RWBY is and recapping a bit of Season 1. Pretty much all of it, in fact. Though, it is insightful, and it's good to have a reminder for those who know and a crash course for those who don't, while having more plot is definitely nice! :)

Man! I didn't think that writing this would take a week and a half! (counting in distractions, like Kireteiru's Stranger Things Have Happened (wonderful story!) and a need for mom to run through it once to make sure it was good, had everything needed for those who don't know things and was consistent with Team RWBY behavior, as well as getting winter break and wanting to spend time with my brother). Of course, I wasn't expecting to be able to keep to a weekly schedule at all when I began this story, even including the fact that I'd already written the entire first arc out by hand! Well, Here's Chapter 6! :)

But before that, I'd like to say sorry for the long wait. As I mentioned, I had to have my mom edit this because 'most everything was completely off the script, though necessary for those who don't know about the RWBY universe, which took longer than expected, and a few of you might become confused by how the perspective changes between first-person from Weiss' point of view to third person, but that's because of how Weiss thinks in this fic. Well, more because of how my brain works, but close enough for now. In real life, this would be like her thinking whilst trying to write a profile for a person, as if she was a part of an intelligence organization. Not that I know much about that that wasn't learned through fiction and databases like the Marvel Wiki and DC Comics wiki, so take it as you will.

Also, if you're wondering why Weiss' information is the only one that is so complete, that's because it's written from Weiss' perspective. She doesn't really know all that much about the other girls in her team because, well, Blake keeps to herself, Ruby isn't the kind to really gossip (and possibly not talk about herself all that much, though that may just be me projecting myself onto her), and Yang's more of a "Go with the flow" kinda girl. That, and she probably pretty much raised Ruby all by herself, if the way she acts and what we've learned about their home life is any indication.

* * *

><p>Weiss stifled a sigh as she turned over again, trying to fall asleep. And yet, no matter what she did, she could not seem to get those mysterious Huntresses out of her mind. She decided to do a memory challenge to try and distract herself. She closed her eyes and remembered.<p>

They were in the third floor room next to the corner on the east side of the Freshman Dorm, which was perfect for viewing the sunrise and the occasional moonrise. The fractured moon that turned above the surface of Remnant was currently in its 'full' state, where none of the fragments that had broken off of the moon (though they stayed in synchronized orbit above the planetoid) sometime in the past were visible. Right in front of her, below a painting of the Forest of Forever Fall was all the Dust she had brought to Beacon in the same white-colored steel matched luggage that her father had had made for her special.

For some odd reason, other than dealing with classes and homework, they still hadn't quite gotten around to unpacking the boxes next to her luggage, and she'd never actually put up a specialized rack for her Dust, though she supposed the Dust was safe enough in the luggage, as they weren't exactly the easiest things to steal or break into, what with the specialized locks that her father had made for them.

Directly above her head was the 'fort' that was Ruby's pretend four-poster bed, complete with an extra sheet used to block out light and include privacy. The sheet in question was held up by the same ropes that held up the bed by the tops of the legs of the beds provided for them by Beacon, though she questioned Ruby's line of thought and sanity where it pertained to the safety of her construction skills.

Then again, the other 'bunk bed', which was just Yang's bed on top of 4 stacks of books which were on top of the legs of Blake's bed was just as suspect. Which, technically speaking, that had been Ruby's idea as well. Still, neither the raven-haired faunus nor herself had yet to be crushed, so she'd reserve judgement... for now.

Between the beds was the bedroom window - which was where she liked to watch the sunrise the few times she actually got up before Ruby and her godforsaken whistle, and more often preferred to watch the moon rise as night fell. -, which was covered by the same curtains as the ones that had been here before their 'remodeling'. She knew this because there was this long diagonal slash straight from bottom left to top right (well, almost, but still completely side to side) that Ruby had accidentally left in it while putting it up whilst the rest of them were making up the room with their stuff (such as the bookshelf underneath the window that Blake had provided and mostly filled). They really should replace those curtains.

The community closet for the room was not the most attractive thing in the world, initially from having to deal with others' clothing as well as her own rather than a massive wardrobe (of mostly matching outfits that mostly looked the same with a few exceptions, though mostly based on shades), but now more from the fact that it was filled with various things which Aura had seeped into and that caused interesting effects on the area. Such as suddenly expanding into a massive Great Hall all on it's own without taking up more space in the building and becoming a dangerous maze that attempted to trap whoever entered, filled with traps of various types.

Sitting above Yang's bed and her tawny Dog pillow was a rather unevenly placed poster to the Achieve Men, whom she assumed was some pop band she'd never heard of, which Weiss was thoroughly convinced she wouldn't like from how pretty the boys on the poster appeared to be.

But she'd also never heard of Red Riding Hood or Snow White in her lessons on the history of great Huntsmen and Huntresses of recent times. She also wondered who the brunette - whom was brunette and frosted the same way Ruby was - actually was and why she was wearing that handkerchief on her face? And who were those other women?

Okay, this isn't working. Try another one.

Ah, what did she know of her team.

Well, there was Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, their team leader, and herself of course, Weiss Schnee. Go in order of team name spelling.

No, father would disapprove. Go in alphabetical order.

Blake Belladonna is a teenaged girl just like the rest of them. She has long, unruly black hair and amber eyes and cat's ears...

Okay, that's not going to work. Let's try who I know about the most and go to the next most until the list of "What Weiss Schnee knows about Her Teammates" is complete and organized according to most information to least information.

Obviously, that list would start with herself.

Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company and the Schnee Legacy (with the Fortune that follows it), has not had the easiest life. When she was a young girl, her father began to mentor her on how to be a proper leader for the company. Trade routes, the way that the company worked, business strategies, stocks, politics and current events. All were memorized and examined alongside her more traditional studies, beginning at age 7 when she was deemed as sharp enough to begin learning the business. She also began to learn all she could about the Dust that her family's company mined and shipped and that _everyone_ used in one form or another. Batteries? Minute amounts of Yellow Dust with a few other materials added in for consistency and to keep the Dust stable and useful. Fuel for vehicles? Every type of vehicle currently uses red or blue Dust, though years ago they used Dust of all kinds, experimenting as they pleased to see what worked the best. The sugar used in her coffee or the cleaning agent in Shi-nee toothpaste, which her father's company sells?

Well... surprisingly enough, the same odd variant of White Dust is the sugar she grew up with and also the active cleaning agent in the toothpaste.

Soon after discovering the uses of Dust for herself, one of the newer hires among the servants decided to get a little grabby, which was just as well that she didn't like him as she soon discovered he was a Faunus, specifically a member of the radical group known as The White Fang who had targeted her family and the company for years, practically since before she was born, and had even killed relatives of hers that she knew and members of the Board of Directors, even personal friends, often making her father come home furious. She'd scrambled away from the Faunus, barely staying away until she found herself in the kitchen, cornered but suddenly armed with a kitchen knife and a bottle from the spice rack. In desperation, she'd opened up the bottle and threw the entire contents of the bottle into his eyes before she slashed at him, injuring him enough to cause a shout, which attracted the attention of other servants, who held the Faunus in place to keep him away from her until her father had come down to see what was going on, and thus allowing him to deal with the cretin. It was a day that had long cemented in her mind that Faunus were nothing but scum, the monsters they showed themselves to be in the White Fang. A position she was now having to deal with and decide how to revise.

The other important thing about that day is that she learned that day that she wasn't simply a girl in a dress. If pressed, then she was a fighter, and that was when the idea got into her head to become a Huntress. Money? Fame? A life of comfort where she was constantly attended to? That she had. But Power? _That_ she didn't have yet, and she saw, both through her father's eyes and her own that the Huntsmen and Huntresses held the _real_ power among those in place today, with the Grimm outside the walls, waiting to kill and eat and rend and tear to their heart's content whatever creature misfortunate enough to cross paths with them, though animals are generally spared, especially when Humans are around. While the militaries of the kingdoms and the androids provided by the Kingdom of Atlas were there to protect the populace where the local police could not, it was the Huntsmen and Huntresses who hunted down Grimm, because they were the only ones actually capable of it.

As a result of that decision, she had begun to learn how to fence at age 8, and had even designed her own outfit as a Huntress, something that would help mark out who she was to friend and foe, and it was what she was wearing during the daytime (not right now though, being that she was in the pajamas her mother had gotten her, one of the final gifts from the kind woman). A white bolero jacket with red lining and the Schnee family crest, a silvery 12-pointed snowflake that looked like daggers were coming out of the points, on the back. That covered her torso to mid-back, but the front was left open to show her white dress (which hugged her torso snugly, but not lewdly, with a special black and lacy undergarment to hide any cleavage that could show. Wouldn't be proper to allow just anyone a free look at her body, now would it?) that bottomed out with a flaring blue combat skirt that reached mid-thigh. Her legs were left bare, but her white boots with their 2-inch platform heels covered up to mid-calf.

She was capable of fighting with either hand, but while she was good with the light foil she'd used to learn in her right, she was deadly with the heavier rapier she counted as hers in her left, which left a hand free to do any gestures needed to summon up her Glyphs. However, she had not simply become good overnight. Oh, no, there were trials that had truly stretched her limits, such as her graduation test, a fight against a giant suit of armor, unnamed by whoever created it (to her knowledge, at least), which had landed a solid punch, sending her rocketing back and that hit would have been enough to seriously injure her if nor for her Aura. Instead, she merely got off with a gash starting above her eye and running across it to her left cheek without injuring the precious orb. That wound had since faded to little more than a scar, a near-invisible white line on her face.

Currently, though, she was not living the life of luxury she had in Atlas with her father. No, she was living in a dorm with 4 other girls, all of whom she had her issues with but would protect with her life. They had all earned that.

She'd also recently learned that she didn't actually know all that much about them. The way she'd learned this was not pleasant, what with Blake accidentally revealing herself a Faunus before Weiss had been forced to rethink her position on Faunus, but right now she was what she knew of them.

It was true that she wasn't the most, sociable of people. A part of that is the self-serving attitude she had been forced to adopt in order to keep up with her father's demands for perfection, and a part of that was the mask that she'd had to adopt in order to survive in "high society", but a part of it also came from not really having any real friends growing up.

Next was Ruby Rose. The leader of Team RWBY - the name given to them by Proffessor Ozpin at the end of initiation was spelled by the beginnings of their names, like it is for many similar teams, and pronounced as "ruby" - is a slim individual with a sturdy build, brown hair with red-frosted tips, a larger bust than Weiss' own, an inch of height over her when she isn't wearing her normal 2-inch-heeled combat boots, and uses a 2-foot gun that extends into a 7-foot-long spiked metal pole holding a 3-foot long blade in the shape of a scythe with a high-powered sniper rifle built into the pole to be operated from the halfway point, the barrel opening just barely poking from the top where the blade is.

The girl's preferred combat uniform was a black combat skirt with red lining, a black combat corset with long sleeves and red laces on the stomach, accented by her black belt which held a few extra rounds for her sniper scythe and an ammo pouch (as well as a set of hooks to hold onto her scythe, Crescent Rose) and the silver buckle was in the shape of her personal symbol, a Rose, as well as a red hooded cape held fast by silver cross buttons (which was actually rather stylish in it's own unique way), and her black thigh-high combat boots covering the bottoms of her full-length black stockings completed the image. Her striking silver eyes were often filled with a powerful curiosity and naivety that constantly reminded Weiss of a little child, as did the way she acted and held fast to cookies as a dietary staple only reinforced this image, not to mention her fascination with weapons and the childish way that she fawned over the Cross-Continental Transmit tower, which, admittedly, was very impressive (though, the one in Vale was nowhere near as good as the first one built, back in Atlas). However, the way she could plan in combat, the way she could use her scythe competently in ways that are absolutely beyond Weiss, especially given how heavy the weapon actually was (Weiss couldn't even lift it properly in either form without using her Aura to enhance her strength), and the way that solid determination filled those same silver eyes when the situation was serious all told her that beneath the childishness, Ruby Rose was a force to reckoned with. The way that she could kill a Grimm without the slightest bit of hesitation had astounded her the first few times she'd seen it, but now it was just another part of her leader that she admired.

Not that she'd ever actually say that to the brunette's face, of course.

The girl's Semblance was her near-impossible speed. With it she could go so fast that she could appear to teleport. She tended to leave behind rose petals behind her in abundance whenever she uses it, which tends to clutter up whatever area she had just vacated until they dissipate. Though, it was a rather odd thing, now that she thought about it, that whenever Ruby killed a Grimm with Crescent Rose, the corpse would dissolve into rose petals, rather than simply fade like normal.

Thinking about those rose petals and Ruby killing Grimm reminded her of the team's first 'official' battle against a powerful Grimm. During initiation, they had been assaulted by an adult Nevermore, a gigantic crow-like creature half the size of the airship that had brought all the first-year students to Beacon and just as capable of flying and using it's feathers as projectiles, which caused Ruby to be caught by her cape and had allowed the scorpion-like Deathstalker that had been chasing Pyrrha to reach Ruby. She had decided then and there to go and save the dense girl by speeding up to her (with the help of a discreet Glyph at her feet) and using some Ice Dust to create a wall of ice between them and the Deathstalker. Then she'd berated the girl for her idiocy, before relenting that, maybe, she had been a little harsh on the younger girl and that she would endeavor to be nicer. That's when Blake reminded them that their goal was to get a relic and get back to the school safely, not to kill everything in their way, and so the group of them had all decided that, discretion being the better part of valor, to run on back to school before they risked serious injury or death. They had been informed at the beginning of initiation that the teachers, while watching, would not intervene in this test, and so it was up to them to survive.

They had run towards the school, and when they were almost there, they came upon a structure that the Nevermore landed on. They couldn't really circle around, as the structure was in the middle of a gorge that was directly between them and the school, and the Deathstalker was still bearing up behind them so they couldn't run or take the time to circle around, so they went straight through, finally taking on the Nevermore on approximately even ground. However, no matter how powerfully they hit it, they couldn't seem to even scratch the damn Grimm, even when Yang jumped out to be snatched up in its beak so that she could ram some active explosive Dust from her shotgun-gauntlets down it's throat. Except that actually did have an effect, which was when Ruby came up with a plan to defeat it. While the Nevermore was dazed and on the ground, Ruby told her to tie the creature down with some ice, connecting it to the ground by its tail feathers (though, how the feathers in question were not simply plucked, Weiss wasn't sure). Then, using Blake's weapon's seemingly indestructible ribbon and a pair of pillars as a slingshot, Weiss had aimed in such a way that Ruby would be able to hook her scythe on the 'bird's neck and sent the girl flying before lining up a line of Glyphs so that the crimsonette could run up the cliff face, using her Semblance and the added power of the scythe's powerful recoil to drag the 'bird' up the cliff, trying to sever the head, before finally managing to do so when the neck caught on a jutting ledge at the edge of the top of the cliff. It was all rather dramatic and awe-inspiring. That was also the moment when Weiss began to truly respect the younger girl.

Then there's Ruby's sister, Yang Xiao Long. She was a little taller than Ruby, with a larger bust that made Weiss fairly jealous (though, not for the back pain the blonde probably had to deal with, if you ignore her Aura's probable healing of it) and her clothing was rather revealing. The garb reminded the rich girl of a certain adventurer, other than the definite feminity of the outfit, with a leather jacket top (that had poofy shoulder-sleeves that stopped before the elbow because of buttoned cuffs which was cut to show off her bellybutton and down, a yellow tube top under that that showed her bust for all to see that had the girl's symbol, a burning heart, in black but partially hidden by the jacket, black cut-finger gloves that were accentuated by the golden bracelets that were her weapon, Ember Celica, when not prepared for battle, a belted leather skirt that held a pouch for holding things and was unevenly cut, which gave it a downward spiral look along the edge and had a gold version of her symbol on the lowest bit in the middle. There was another layer to the skirt, a cotton cloth cut as oddly as the leather but longer, and both had a 'window' in the front to show off her black exercize shorts, and there was gold piping on both the jacket and the leather skirt. The final part of her ensemble, if it could be called such, was a pair of worn leather boots which reached to just below the knee and a pair of yellow stockings, the one on the left pulled up above her knee to where it stopped and with a grey bandana wrapped around her leg at the top of the boot, and the one on the right allowed to simply droop on top of the boot, finishing her rather unkempt look.

For all that the blonde berserker with a fondness for her honey-colored hair (which easily reached mid-back, though it was usually in the wind a little too much to get a proper accounting of how long it actually was when she was actually paying attention) that bordered on obsession (seriously. If anything cuts her hair, even just one strand, she goes on a rampage and utterly destroys whatever it was that did it) wore her heart on her sleeve, she didn't know a whole lot about the girl. She had done her research on the girl, but the most she'd really gotten from the digital sources was how she had a 3.5 grade-point average, mostly bringing home B+'s and A-'s. Well, that and a few minor charges of disturbing the peace that never actually earned her jail time (one particularly noteworthy time was a bar fight that basically demolished the bar, though it only noted her as a suspect rather than an actual charge), aggravated assault, and a few speeding tickets. The reports on the assaults basically said she was protecting her sister, and so they let her off lightly. She had found out that Ruby and Yang had different mothers but the same father, but that was all she'd found digitally.

In personal observation, the girl was a brute, a bruiser that believed the best way to fight was to punch things in the face until it stopped moving, and while she talked like a party girl, she acted like an overbearing mother Ursa, especially protective of Ruby. She was a sound advocate of fun, partying, and a lack of study with a rather brilliant smile, but she did show that she cared when she wasn't acting her age. Either way, the girl had a somewhat plain honesty that she found refreshing at times, wearing her heart on her sleeve rather than hiding it like Weiss did, a way with puns that she had decided to try and emulate as she had learned of the effectiveness of battle banter somewhat early in her training, she just hadn't learned how to use it correctly, and the blonde was highly skilled (obviously, from how she had been accepted into Beacon) and an actually useful member of the team. When angered, her lilac eyes would turn as red as the red on a Grimm's mask. Not quite blood red, as it was far too vibrant for that, and the anger in it had a heat and life to it that the lines of red on Grimm never could, but when turned on you it could be quite chilling.

Physically, she's strong. Stronger than almost anyone she knew, including her father and Ruby. She was well-built, though her muscles didn't stand out in sharp relief like the muscles she'd seen on body builders, and her skin was actually a shade or two paler than Blake, Ruby, or herself, and being of Schnee lineage, she was close enough to snow white skin that it almost made no nevermind.

Finally, she came to Blake Belladonna. The quiet girl was actually the person she knew the least about on the team, even if she could actually say more about her than about Yang. It could be _because_ Blake was such a mystery that she understood little about while Yang simply_ was_. She was compelled to collect all she knew about Blake in one place, _because_ she was such a mystery. Insight on Yang simply required you to watch her for a day.

Blake was a teenager like the rest of them, a mane of unruly black hair that could billow out like a cloak behind her while running that held an equally black bow on top of her head, just a little bit back, and somehow managed to compliment her amber eyes well, which were accented lightly by a simple application of purple eyeshadow. Not much, just a dab at the corners of her eyes, its minimalistic feel matching the girl's quiet nature.

Her normal daytime garb (unlike the black yukata she was currently wearing, both of which were always neat and tidy) consisted of a black buttoned and coattailed vest that stopped beneath her bust on top of a white tube top which is connected somehow to the white short shorts she wore above her black stockings which faded to purple the closer to the black one-inch-heeled boots you got, other than the slightly holographic silver examples of Blake's symbol at the thigh on both stockings, which happened to be a Belladonna flower like her last name, or so Weiss assumed. She still hadn't discovered the purpose to the zippers on Blake's shorts. The only other noteworthy thing about her appearance were that she wore odd black ribbons around her forearms as if they were a badly wrapped set of mummy wrappings and she had a black sleeve with a silver armband near the shoulder on her left arm.

Her weapon, which Blake had named Gambol Shroud, hadn't seemed like a proper weapon at first. In all honesty, it looked like someone had attached a thin black blade to the top of a USP pistol, and then covered that with a very large, definitely oversized sheathe over it, making it look like a boxy greatblade with a pistol for a hilt, a ribbon trailing from the bottom where the clip goes in like a banner. However, more thought had been put into it than you could readily see at first.

The katana-like blade was collapsible so that it would reverse along the top of the gun like a very small scythe, a Kama to be specific, and could be swung around like a ball and chain, though more deadly, and when pressed, Blake could attach one of the ribbons from her wrists to add range to this form of the gunblade, and she could pull the trigger using the ribbons to spontaneously change the weapon's direction or add additional speed to strikes, making for an impressive attack style and weapon, once you had mastered it. Even the sheathe was made use of, as the large boxy thing had a sharp edge along one side, where the gun was pointed, as if that was the main purpose of the blade, and could be used as an independent blade held by a hand-sized rectangular hole right at the base of the sheath.

The woman was quiet, often preferring to read alone whilst the others went along with their lives, their own worries and troubles. She had a liking for tuna, which was almost odd, especially in the way she preferred the entire fish be present though she would take canned tuna or tuna fish sandwiches easily. She was well-read, and could easily hold her own in a debate against herself, and had a rather focused interest in issues dealing with the Faunus, including both the way history presents them and their abilities, which were well above normal human norm and included a decent package of more powerful senses, perhaps even including a better ability to sense Aura, and the current history and political affairs to do with them (not to mention keeping stock of who uses Faunus in their labor forces and how, such as the rumors of the Schnee Dust Company using undereducated Faunus as less protected, less well-paid workers in the Dust mines who were basically considered to be expendable. Those rumors had caught her attention when they were brought up, but at the time she'd thought such rumors nothing but hateful slander against her ancestral company, her birthright that she would inherit once she was of age). Weiss had wondered the first time she'd seen an article about a Faunus right's protest on the other girl's Scroll that first time Weiss had actually caught her slacking off in class. The raven-haired girl actually studied as ardently as she did, and that was saying something.

Of course, after the events at the docks, she understood exactly why.

Unknown to them, Blake Belladonna, their Blake who had stood by them through thick and thin, had been a cat-faunus the entire time. When it came out, they'd been arguing about whether or not the White Fang deserved any merit more than a rabid dog might, and immediately after offering the possibility, in her own words, that "Maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!", she had had a desperate look on her face before fleeing whilst they were still shell-shocked by the admission.

Afterwards, mostly at Ruby's insistence, they'd searched the city of Vale for any sign of Blake. She'd mentioned the possibility of involving the police in the matter, letting them take care of it, but Ruby took it the wrong way (well, mostly, if Weiss was honest with herself then she'd admit, if only to herself, that she had been considering Blake as a criminal out of hand at the time), and so they didn't go to them. Not that it would've helped, as Weiss later discovered that the laws say that unless a person has been missing at least 24 hours, they cannot be declared as missing, and thus no police action can actually be taken.

They were searching for the girl for a full 12 hours, mostly because she had debated about even going on the search in the first place after they first got up. For the first part, the three of them were walking around, shouting for her (though Weiss wasn't shouting), until Penny, a fighter here for the Vytal festival, though very weird, appeared right behind her with no warning and showed them, in a roundabout way, how Blake was a Faunus, and when Penny overreacted to Blake's missing status by coming up to Ruby and going off on a soliloquy, Yang and her made their escape. An hour later, Yang noted out to her that she wasn't helping as much as she could, that Weiss really didn't care about finding Blake. She'd responded simply. "Of course I do. I'm just afraid of what she'll say when we find her." She'd turned to Yang to make sure she understood as she said, "The innocent never run Yang." before walking off to continue the search.

A few hours later, there was an explosion at the docks, and they arrived to the scene of a wrapped up battle. Police officers were standing around, some like incompetents, some like they knew what they were doing. She marched right up to Blake, half ignoring Ruby's attempt to calm her down with a mention of cute cat ears and then she listened to Blake's attempt to calm her down, quickly giving a rundown on her activities with the White Fang, though she started out with the words, "I want you to know that I am no longer associated with the White Fang."

6 words later and she interrupted her friend simply. "Stop. Do you have any idea of how long we've been searching for you?" Weiss had paused to let her words spoken at the Faunus in front of her (as well as the non-confrontational tone and posture she'd said them in) sink in. "_Twelve_ hours. That means I've had twelve hours to think about this. And in that twelve hours, I've decided..." She let the other girl stew for a second, a technique she'd picked up from her father and a half-competent instructor who'd preferred talk and battles of debate over teaching. "I don't care!"

Blake had been very surprised. "You don't care?"

"You said you're not one of them anymore, right?" Weiss had pointed out rather logically.

"No, I-I haven't been since I was younger-"

Weiss had put up a hand and silenced her. "Ah-bah-bah-bah-bah! I don't want to hear it. All I want to know is that the next time something this big comes up... you'll come to your teammates. And not some..." She had unintentionally looked over Blake's shoulder to look at Sun, the monkey Faunus who'd been there throughout this particular debacle. She started to say something along the lines of "Scruffy-looking degenerate Rogue" or a rapscallion or something along those lines, as her father had taught her to look on for the Faunus, but then she'd caught herself and simply said, "Someone else."

And with that, other than reporting in to Proffessor Ozpin, the entire fiasco was wrapped up.

Later, Blake had shown them her cat ears at Weiss' request, which had been filtered through words that meant things like "Privilege of the elite" and "since I am the last to see them, then I must be shown", though she had included Yang into that second one, and they'd been very thin excuses. Blake had smiled at the heiress and shown them to the team. Right where the bow usually sat were two rather cute cat ears, black with grey insides. Without the bow, she actually looked somewhat bedraggled, rather than the usual serene, seemingly regal normal person they'd become accustomed to. But, in truth, that was little more important than wearing a dress on one day and a combat skirt on another, with an equal amount of change.

So, in summary, she... didn't actually know a whole lot about her team. She knew that they were driven, that they were dependable, if childish, and that they belonged to her, just as she belonged to them. Though, that particular phrasing came more from the woman they'd met earlier that night rather than her own self.

And just who were those women?

"Can't sleep Weiss?"

Her eyes opened with a surprised snap, body turning around to face the intruder, ready for fight or flight assessment, before she fully recognized that it was only Ruby. She sighed. "Yes, Ruby, I'm awake."

"Still thinking about them?" Ruby said simply.

There was no doubt about who "they" were. She nodded. "There's just too much we don't know about them. Who were they? Where did they come from?" She looked Ruby in the face, for some reason trying to ignore the white pajama pants with roses on them and black tank top with a heart-shaped Beowolf caricature face on the bust - the black face mask with red triangles reminiscent of eyes absent at current - to focus on those silver orbs in front of her. "My father had me study famous Huntsmen and Huntresses of recent times as part of my training and there is no mention of any Huntress to have endured such a hard lifestyle as they mentioned, not in recent times. The closest we have to such warriors were roaming ones, but those hardships were only endured way back when Remnant was still in its infancy. Back when Dust was either unknown or treated as some dangerous magic - wild and uncontrollable - and those accounts are little more than rumor and superstition or stories designed to keep the adults entertained and the children obedient." The heiress didn't really want to crush her team leader whom she knew had a noticeably profound love of those kinds of stories, ones where the virtuous Huntsmen and Huntresses go out and slay the evil Grimm and other forces of darkness, but she couldn't keep back the bitterness from the reminder of the thankless tasks of little to no reward which had ruled her childhood at times. She couldn't keep back the sigh those thoughts produced.

"Wanna talk about it?" The girl asked sympathetically.

Weiss shook her head. "No thank you, I'm just tired." She rolled over to try and go to sleep, or at least get the crimsonette to leave her in peace.

No such luck. The younger girl sat there for a moment before asking, "Could you tell me one of those stories?"

She sighed. "No, Ruby."

"Please!" She whisper-yelled.

Weiss closed her eyes and sighed, slowly counting in her head to try and keep a level head. Then she decided to humor the other girl. "Well, there were a few stories that seemed to match the claims those women had. They were all centered on four nameless warriors, and there were many different versions of most of the stories, but many of them called the main characters 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse', based on the fact that they often rode horses - especially into battle - and they left death and destruction wherever they went." She paused to think, unaware that she'd rolled over to look Ruby in the face. "The version of the most popular story that seems to be most accurate accounts that they were well storied warriors, capable of many seemingly impossible feats, including fighting down Nevermores that usually stayed in the skies, dealing with multiple Deathstalkers, King Taijitu, and Greater Ursa at a time or combinations as well as beating down hordes and packs of Beowolves and Ursi like we would, though the numbers seem exaggerated."

"Wow." Ruby said, her face impressed, but taking what she'd said into stride. Weiss remembered having a similar face at first, and while one part of her wanted to remind the girl that the stories collected on these four were nothing more than a distorted collection of rumors and myths and legends, another, larger part of Weiss had gotten caught up in the storytelling and wanted to continue, though there was a thing that was so commonplace to the two of them that weren't in those times that she felt she needed to clarify it to the younger girl.

"Ruby, I don't think that you completely grasp the enormity of what I just said. I know I already said that Dust was believed to be dangerous magic that couldn't be controlled, counted on or used properly, but there's another part to it. Back then, Aura was little more than superstition. They didn't usually believe it existed, and those that did were counted as fools that believed in nonsense. If a Huntsman or Huntress were to be hit by a single swipe from a lesser Beowolf, one of the weakest Grimm in existence, then they were liable to be torn in half." She added, somewhat harshly. "Besides, even with the advantages of Dust and Aura and Semblances, it still takes highly skilled and experienced warriors to kill Grimm, especially in large numbers, even with groups as small as 10, or even 5, or own experience notwithstanding. These four managed to kill, at smallest count, 10 or more Grimm of various types in almost every bigger than normal battle they ever participated in, and these were people without any of our advantages, with only as much strength as a bodybuilder without Aura, at most, with average speed and comparatively pathetic durability. That hit I took from the Ursa earlier? That would have torn one of them clean in half, rather than simply cutting in, and just getting the slightest cut in past thick Grimm hides would have been incredibly difficult."

"Speaking of," Ruby interrupted at the reminder of the hit Weiss had taken earlier that night. "What did the nurse think of your cuts?"

Weiss sighed and unconsciously put a hand over where the wound had been. "She said that they were incredibly deep and surprisingly well-managed and healed for something that I had supposedly gotten less than an hour before. The stitches were professionally sutured, even if they _were_ installed in a shape, and that there was no real further damage beyond my Aura's capabilities, so it should be healed by morning."

"What kinda shape was it stitched in?" Ruby asked curiously.

Weiss felt her cheeks heating up a little. "A line of snowflakes." She really hoped Ruby didn't see her blush.

"So what was their biggest fight?" Ruby asked excitedly.

"Well, the texts tend to disagree on exactly what was their biggest battle. Some say that the Hood's fight against the Vermillion Rose of the group known as the Hunters of Vermillion was the biggest, and I think that that one is the most believable. Some say that their fight against 5 Greater Nevermores was their biggest or most amazing, though I always found that particular account rather ridiculous."

"How would they have fought the Nevermores?" Ruby asked curiously. "Don't they only swoop down to either attack or land in their nest, for the most part?"

Weiss nodded and shrugged helplessly at the same time. "How would I know? Of course, a few of the battles attributed to them are obviously nothing more than hearsay, myths, or just flat-out lies."

"Did they ever kill a Hydra? Or a Dragon?" Ruby asked, eyes sparkling, subdued excitement almost bringing a smile to the heiress' face except for what she had to say next.

"Ruby, Hydra never existed." Weiss said bitterly. She'd wanted to meet one, when she was younger, even if it'd likely kill her. Her father put paid to those thoughts quick enough, and here she was, repeating those same crushing words. "Neither do Dragons, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a fool... or insane."

The absolutely heartbroken look on Ruby's face twisted at Weiss' heart, like as if someone had killed her puppy or something. She sniffled, and said, "Well, I guess I'm a fool then. Or insane." She stood quickly and dusted off her knees before saying in a subdued tone "Goodnight Weiss." before quickly climbing into bed.

Weiss sat there, shocked and confused by her bubbly team leader's abnormally cool dismissal and subsequent leaving, and tried to puzzle out exactly what it was that she'd said to make her react like that for a good half an hour. She only stopped when a breeze ran across her face, blowing some of her hair into her face. She gave an annoyed huff at the breeze for interrupting her musings and glanced at the window, finding it open. Strange, she thought she'd closed it earlier. She left her bed as quietly as possible and went to close the window when a piece of paper smacked into her face. She tore it off and was about to throw it away, dismissing it from her life as quickly as it had appeared, but then it caught the soft moonlight in just the right way to catch her attention and make her pause.

Perhaps it was simply that the room was near silent at that moment, or the way the moonlight shone on the paper, but the picture on the paper instantly struck terror into her heart.

And what was worse is that it wasn't simply some poorly done drawing of some fantasy creature by her leader, it was an aged photograph, a little yellowed but still clearly legible as the nightmare it showed. A young man, though devoid of grey hair he was clearly recognizable as their teacher, Peter Port, partly because of the rather distinctive Blunderbus/Battleaxe combo weapon he held in one hand like a baseball bat. He stood resolute, almost like he likely imagined himself in his impossibly boring anecdotes that he shares in class, facing down a monster that she had dismissed as mere fantasy after her father had broken what few illusions and childish notions involving the Four Horsemen she'd had. True, it was just a small picture, used in a news article for what appeared to be a small town years ago, but the lifelike way this Grimm was portrayed left no doubt as to its veracity.

The paper trembled in her suddenly slack grip, fear gripping her before she could get ahold of herself.

And then the breeze kicked up again and the page, still in Weiss' hand, was wrenched from her hold and fluttered out the window. The snow-haired heiress' eyes widened and she made a mad grab for it, wanting - no, _needing _- to know more, to verify, even if the truth would terrify her, but by the time she reached the window that the page had left, it was already out of her reach, floating away with the wind. She watched it, resigned as her chance to find out flew away on the wind.

After the piece of paper left her view, she reluctantly went back to bed, resolved to ask her teacher about that picture, and then fell asleep. Not easily or quickly, but she did.

Of course, if she had stayed up just a little longer, she would've heard a muffled curse from right above their window before seeing someone carefully sneak in, leave behind the piece of paper that had flown off, and then leave, closing the window behind them.


End file.
